Overview
- Perplexity told reporters it has phased out advertising and is not exploring new ad deals for now.
- The startup plans to grow its roughly five‑person enterprise sales team and court large organizations and high‑powered users such as finance professionals, doctors, lawyers, and CEOs.
- Leaders said revenue grew about 4.7× last year, with external reporting placing annual recurring revenue near $200 million by October 2025.
- OpenAI has begun U.S. tests of contextual, clearly labeled ads in ChatGPT for logged‑in adults on Free and Go tiers, with safeguards such as exclusions for sensitive topics and no sale of conversations.
- The industry is splitting on monetization, with Anthropic pledging to keep Claude ad‑free and Google showing ads in AI Overviews while keeping Gemini itself ad‑free so far.