AI Search War Heats Up as AI Firms Partner with Publishers

Perplexity recently announced revenue-sharing deals with publishers, but it is far from the only player in the space with its eyes set on how to make AI search a big (and ethical) business.

The appeal of AI-powered search: AI chatbots aim to provide comprehensive answers to user queries, eliminating the need to open and read multiple links. The promise of these chatbots means tech giants are racing to develop their own versions of AI-powered search.

• Tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are vying to leverage generative AI to transform the traditional search experience.
• For AI-powered search to work effectively, models must be able to scrape the web for relevant, up-to-date information.

Perplexity’s partnership with publishers: The AI search startup has struck revenue-sharing deals with Time, Fortune, and other publishers to compensate them when their content is cited in AI-generated answers:

• Perplexity plans to introduce sponsored “related follow-up questions” this fall, with partners receiving a cut of the ad revenue for each citation.
• OpenAI and Google are also building partnerships with media outlets to access and utilize their content for AI training and search results.

AI search differs from past tech-media partnerships: Unlike social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat, AI search engines critically depend on high-quality, timely content from publishers:

• Generative AI models lack internal information beyond their training data, which can be months or years old, making recent stories essential for accurate, relevant answers.
• Without access to up-to-date news content, AI search products would be severely limited in their ability to provide information on current events and topics.

Broader implications: The shift towards AI-mediated content consumption raises questions about the future of media outlets and their relationship with readers:

• As AI chatbots increasingly digest and regurgitate content on behalf of users, fewer human readers may visit publishers’ websites directly, potentially impacting ad revenue and subscription models.
• The opaque algorithms underlying AI search products will determine what information users ultimately see, introducing new challenges and considerations for publishers.

While these partnerships represent a step towards compensating media outlets for their crucial role in enabling AI-powered search, the long-term implications for the publishing industry remain uncertain. As tech giants continue to develop and refine their AI search offerings, it will be critical to monitor how these deals evolve and whether they prove sustainable for publishers in an increasingly AI-driven media landscape.