Perplexity has offered ads for half a year — marketers already want scale

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So far opportunities to test Perplexity’s ads haven’t gone beyond the limited pilot group, said one ad exec who exchanged anonymity for candor. However, the AI-platform’s Merchant Program — an initiative which also launched last November, and is designed to give large and small retailers access to Perplexity’s users seeking AI-powered shopping recommendations, as well as increase product visibility, without any commission fees — is another way to get on board.

“We’re in talks with Perplexity about their Merchant Program as well, and they’ve earmarked one of our larger clients for testing opportunities, but progress has been slow, so nothing of substance to report on that front yet,” they explained.

How quickly that changes depends on whether Perplexity can scale its user base and give advertisers more to work with than brand awareness. Right now, the platform is still pitching itself as an awareness play, so while the offering and potential is promising it’s still in wait-and-see territory.

As Basis Technologies’ partner, strategic business outcomes Robert Kurtz put it, while there is (anecdotally) significant interest in Perplexity coming from his team’s clients, they aren’t ready to spend yet because of “its low scale and because of its focus on awareness compared to other options.”

It’s a view shared by Ryan Bopp, svp of digital strategy at Eden Collective, who said his team hadn’t yet moved forward with any ad investments over the last six months.

“Our hesitation stems from a few key concerns: limited scale on the platform, lack of demonstrated ROI, brand safety considerations, and CPM efficiency,” he said. “We are actively monitoring the platform’s development and the broader adoption of AI-powered media channels, but at this time, the investment presents more risk than we’re comfortable taking on behalf of our clients.”

In another era, a platform like Perplexity might have had the luxury of time to refine its ad proposition before stepping into the ring. But in today’s crowded AI race, where attention is fleeting and ad budgets even more so, slow and steady doesn’t cut it.

“They were the first AI platform to make a splash with advertising and they continue to lead the way in integrating commerce into the AI search process,” said Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights. “The challenge is that Perplexity is still a small fish in a big AI pond.”

To compare, Perplexity has around 22 million active users across its website and app, while ChatGPT has around 400 million users, according to Business of Apps. Google announced that AI Overviews counted more than 1.5 billion monthly users in 200 countries during its recent I/O event. And when it comes to advertising, while ChatGPT doesn’t currently have advertising, its parent OpenAI plans to introduce ads, especially for its free users in 2026. And Google expanded both search and shopping ads into AI Overviews in the U.S. as of May 2025, with plans to include more countries and mobile devices in the future.

The lack of scale puts Perplexity on the back burner, especially in a market where advertisers are tightening belts and chasing efficiency.

One ad exec, who confirmed his team had committed “minimal” spend to Perplexity over the last six months, said the uncertainty due to the macro economic environment has meant advertisers are more hesitant to expend effort against experimental buys.

Which is why Kurtz noted that once, or if, Perplexity rolls out a more lower-funnel ad option, there could be a lot more brand interest. 

“It’s our job to position the ad opportunity Perplexity does offer and align it with the expected outcome such as awareness and engagement versus the normal search engine low-funnel and direct response value proposition,” he added.

But without that shift there’s only so far the pitch can go — and Kurtz, like his peers, may be in for a long wait. Perplexity’s chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko confirmed as much when Digiday caught up with him in January. And the platform’s head of advertising and shopping, Taz Patel, who joined the business in December, reiterated that point recently during Luma Partners’ DMS event in New York, during a fireside chat with the firm’s partner, Conor McKenna.

“Ads within Perplexity is in its early stages [of development], it’s very much product driven,” he said. “When we think about impressions, Google and Amazon [already] have that scale, but we’re not trying to say, we have this programmatic or bidding ad system. We’re trying to redefine this and do it from scratch.”

It’s a pitch that’s left advertisers with more questions than answers. 

“I was impressed with how he described the agentic future, but overall the way he talked about Perplexity’s work in advertising still seemed very early and conceptual — not a fully formed ad business by any means,” said one exec when talking to Digiday recently, who attended Patel’s panel at Liveramp’s RampUp conference in San Francisco in February.

Still, there’s only so much time Perplexity has. It’s burning through cash. 

The Information reported this month that Perplexity had generated $34 million in revenue in 2024, but still burned through about $65 million in cash that was spent on cloud servers and AI models used to power Perplexity’s answers. 

At the same time, the AI-powered search engine was finalizing its $500 million fundraise, which would value the company at $14 billion, but was still its fifth funding round in just over 18 months, according to the Financial Times.

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In short, Perplexity might be making money, but given it’s burning through those dollars at a pretty speedy pace, a solid advertising platform could provide the business with steadier and more consistent income to enable it to follow through with its product roadmap. What’s needed here is lower funnel opportunities, and more advertisers on board to get the word out. 

“I really do think Perplexity has done a lot to popularize the idea that AI platforms can be advertising destinations,” Aho Williamson added. “Advertisers will be able to get some valuable early learnings by partnering with Perplexity, but it’s not going to be a must-buy until it becomes more widely used.”

That said, it’s not the only AI platform in a similar predicament. While OpenAI’s Sam Altman revealed the company is developing an “AI companion device,” the company previously told investors that it doesn’t expect to turn a profit until 2029, and expects to lose $44 billion along the way, that’s where needing a robust ad business comes into play, providing a stable income.

 “Whoever displaces Google will do exactly what Perplexity is doing right now: constantly experimenting, with a relentless focus on the user experience. The businesses who partner with us to explore new ways to serve and engage their customers already get this,” said Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer at Perplexity in an emailed statement.