Perplexity AI on Monday said it will begin paying out millions of dollars to media outlets as part of a new model for sharing search revenue with publishers.

The company's media partners will soon get paid when their work is used by Perplexity's browser or AI assistant to satisfy queries or requests, according to the San Francisco-based startup.

"We're compensating publishers in the model that's right for the AI age," the Perplexity team said in a blog post.

The payouts will be administered via a subscription service to be rolled out in the coming months, dubbed Comet Plus, which the startup described as a program that ensures publishers and journalists benefit from new business models enabled by AI.

A $42.5 million pool of money has been set aside to share with publishers and is expected to grow over time, according to Perplexity.

"As the web has evolved beyond information to include knowledge, action, and opportunities, excellent content from publishers and journalists matters even more," the Perplexity team said.

The company will charge a $5 monthly subscription for Comet Plus, which will be an added perk for those who already pay for premium versions of Perplexity.

Perplexity is one of Silicon Valley's hottest startups, whose AI-powered search engine is often mentioned as a potential disruptor to Google.

But the company has been targeted with lawsuits by media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, claiming the startup unfairly profits from their work.

One suit accuses Perplexity of illegally copying and reproducing copyrighted content from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post to power its AI-driven "answer engine."

A revenue-sharing model by Perplexity would be a peace offering to publishers and bolster its defenses against accusations of free-riding on their work.

Unlike ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude, Perplexity's tool provides up-to-date answers that often include links to source materials, allowing users to verify information.

And unlike a classic search engine, Perplexity provides ready-made answers on its webpage, making it unnecessary for users to click through to the source website.

Google, meanwhile, has built powerful AI into its search engine and offers AI-generated summaries with query results.

After a lawsuit by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in October, Perplexity criticized the "adversarial posture" of many media as "shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating."

They "prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll," it said at the time.

"We should all be working together to offer people amazing new tools and build genuinely pie-expanding businesses."

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