Perplexity advertising head departs nine months after appointment

Taz Patel, head of advertising and shopping at AI search startup Perplexity, departed the company on August 29, 2025, after nine months in the role. According to Adweek, Patel joined Perplexity in December 2024 and was responsible for developing the startup's emerging advertising business.

Patel's exit comes as Perplexity continues expanding its advertising capabilities and exploring new monetization models. The company announced its first advertising test in November 2024, introducing sponsored follow-up questions alongside AI-generated answers. According to company statements, these sponsored questions are labeled clearly but the answers remain generated by Perplexity's technology rather than advertisers.

Ryan Foutty, Perplexity's vice president of business, told Adweek: "It's been great to have Taz on our team, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors. Perplexity is driven by velocity and curiosity, so our work continues unchanged and we still partner with the world's best marketers and merchants who want to experiment and develop the best consumer experiences for the AI age."

Advertising platform development continues

According to Search Engine Land reporting from November 13, 2024, Perplexity processes 100 million search queries per week. The platform's advertising implementation follows months of development, with the company initially targeting a Q4 2024 launch for its ad platform.

According to CNBC, Perplexity circulated a pitch deck to advertisers promoting the app's reach and user demographics. The platform processes more than 230 million queries monthly and has been downloaded more than 2 million times. According to the presentation, 80% of Perplexity users hold undergraduate degrees, 30% are in senior leadership positions, and 65% work in high-income white-collar professions.

Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann, and PMG emerged as the first advertising partners testing Perplexity's new ad offerings. According to company statements, the advertising program helps generate revenue to share with publisher partners, addressing limitations in subscription-only revenue models.

Revenue sharing and publisher partnerships

Perplexity launched its revenue-sharing program in July 2024, giving publishers opportunities to earn money through the search engine. According to company documentation, when users ask questions and Perplexity generates ad revenue from citing articles in its answers, the platform shares a percentage with the publisher.

Media outlets including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel, and WordPress joined the initial Publishers Program. According to Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity's chief business officer, publishers receive multiple revenue shares if multiple articles from one publisher are used in a single answer.

The advertising model follows a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) structure. According to sources familiar with the matter, CPM prices exceed $50, significantly higher than typical display advertising rates. Search marketing firm Semrush reported that desktop display ads typically have CPMs around $2.50, while mobile videos average about $11.10.

Company growth trajectory

Perplexity's advertising development occurs alongside rapid company growth. According to Bloomberg News, the company's annual recurring revenue increased from $3-4 million at the beginning of 2024 to approximately $70 million by year-end. Daily queries grew from 2.5 million to 20 million during the same period.

The company, valued at $9 billion as of December 2024, has attracted investment from prominent technology figures including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Databricks, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Notable investors also include Susan Wojcicki, Jeff Dean, Yann LeCun, and Andrej Karpathy.

Founded in August 2022, Perplexity emerged as a conversational search engine powered by large language models. The platform synthesizes information from across the web and provides answers with inline citations, distinguishing itself from traditional search engines that primarily return lists of links.

Technical implementation and user experience

According to company statements, Perplexity's advertising appears as sponsored follow-up questions on the side of answers. The questions are labeled as "sponsored," but the answers to sponsored questions are generated by Perplexity's AI technology, not by brands sponsoring the questions.

The platform initially focused on 15 key advertising categories including technology, health and pharmaceuticals, arts and entertainment, finance, and food and beverage. According to the company's pitch deck, advertisers can sponsor "related questions" below answers and purchase display ads adjacent to Perplexity-generated responses.

Perplexity emphasizes that advertising revenue does not influence its AI-generated answers. According to company documentation, the platform maintains unbiased service delivery and protects user privacy, with personal information not shared with advertisers.

Industry context and competitive positioning

Perplexity's advertising development comes as AI-assisted search gains traction among consumers seeking alternatives to traditional search engines. OpenAI introduced SearchGPT in July 2024, while Google launched "AI Overviews" in May 2024, allowing users to see quick answer summaries at the top of search results.

The AI search market faces challenges around content usage and attribution. According to court documents from October 2024, The New York Times sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist notice claiming copyright infringement through unauthorized use of its content. Dow Jones and the New York Post filed similar lawsuits, raising questions about content attribution and usage rights.

According to investigations by Wired magazine and web developer Robb Knight in June 2024, questions arose about Perplexity's compliance with robots.txt standards controlling web crawler access. CEO Aravind Srinivas stated that Perplexity relies on both proprietary and third-party web crawlers, explaining the complexity of content access mechanisms.

Future advertising models

Srinivas has outlined a radical vision for future advertising models where AI agents, rather than humans, become the primary target for advertisements. According to an interview conducted on December 30, 2024, Srinivas explained: "The user never sees an ad. The different merchants are not competing for users' attention; they're competing for the agents' attention."

This proposed system would involve AI agents acting as intermediaries between brands and consumers. When users make requests, multiple companies would compete for the AI agent's attention in the backend, without human users seeing traditional advertisements.

According to Srinivas, AI agents could "spend a lot more compute power" analyzing offers and making decisions based on user preferences. Users could instruct their agents to ignore certain brands, with these preferences remaining confidential between users and their agents.

Patel's background and experience

Before joining Perplexity, Patel served as co-founder and chief revenue officer at influencer-marketing firm Captiv8, which Publicis Groupe acquired in May 2025. He previously held sales leadership roles at Interclick and BlueLithium, both acquired by Yahoo.

According to his professional background, Patel played key roles in successful exits throughout his career and credits his sales leadership experience as formative to his approach to advertising technology. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.

During his tenure at Perplexity, Patel was responsible for bringing marketers, retailers, and technologists together to build advertising integrations and shopping experiences in AI-driven platforms. The company expanded its offerings in October 2024 by introducing Spaces, an AI-powered collaboration hub allowing users to create customized knowledge spaces.

Platform expansion beyond search

Perplexity has expanded beyond pure search functionality to include shopping capabilities and premium subscription tiers. In November 2024, the company launched an AI-powered shopping hub backed by Amazon and Nvidia, providing product recommendations in response to user queries.

The platform introduced finance-related features including real-time stock quotes and company earnings data, sourcing financial information from Financial Modeling Prep. According to company materials, these expansions aim to create comprehensive AI-powered information and commerce experiences.

Perplexity launched its Perplexity Max subscription tier on July 2, 2025, providing unlimited access to advanced AI models including OpenAI's o3-pro and Claude Opus 4 for $200 monthly. The premium tier targets professionals, content creators, business strategists, and academic researchers requiring advanced AI capabilities.

Industry implications

The marketing community has watched Perplexity's monetization developments closely since advertising represents a critical revenue stream for AI search platforms. Perplexity's approach differs from traditional search engine optimization practices by emphasizing transparent advertising opportunities that encourage user engagement through natural curiosity.

Traditional advertising models face potential disruption as AI agents become more sophisticated and capable of making purchasing decisions on behalf of users. According to industry analysis, this transformation could prioritize brand awareness campaigns over direct response advertising formats that currently dominate digital marketing spending.

The departure of Patel comes as Perplexity continues building its advertising infrastructure during what company leadership described as a traditionally strong period for digital advertising spending. The company indicated that this experimental advertising phase will help shape future advertising formats based on user feedback and performance metrics.

As artificial intelligence platforms increasingly compete with established search engines, advertising integration becomes essential for sustainable business models. Perplexity's approach to maintaining unbiased search results while generating advertising revenue will likely influence how other AI companies develop their monetization strategies.

Timeline

• August 2022: Perplexity AI founded as conversational search platform
• July 2024: Perplexity launches revenue-sharing program with publishers
• August 25, 2024: Perplexity targets Q4 launch for advertising platform focusing on high-income users 
• November 12, 2024: Company reveals advertising strategy with sponsored questions and side media placements
• November 18, 2024: Perplexity launches AI-powered shopping assistant with one-click checkout feature
• December 2024: Taz Patel joins Perplexity as head of advertising and shopping
• December 2024: Perplexity achieves $9 billion valuation
• January 1, 2025: Perplexity outlines vision for AI agent-targeted advertising
• July 2, 2025: Perplexity launches Max subscription tier at $200 monthly
• July 10, 2025: Perplexity launches Comet browser for Max subscribers
• July 14, 2025: Perplexity acquires OS.ai domain to build AI operating system
• August 30, 2025: Amazon blocks AI bots from major tech companies including Perplexity
• August 29, 2025: Taz Patel departs Perplexity after nine months

Summary

Who: Taz Patel, former head of advertising and shopping at Perplexity AI, and the artificial intelligence search company valued at $9 billion

What: Patel's departure from Perplexity after nine months of developing the company's advertising business and revenue-sharing programs with publishers

When: August 29, 2025, nine months after joining the company in December 2024

Where: Perplexity AI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence search startup competing with Google Search

Why: While specific reasons for the departure were not disclosed, the exit occurs as Perplexity continues expanding its advertising platform, exploring new monetization models, and building partnerships with major brands and agencies to develop AI-powered advertising experiences

PPC Land explains

Perplexity AI: Founded in August 2022, Perplexity operates as a conversational search engine powered by large language models that synthesizes information from across the web and provides answers with inline citations. The San Francisco-based company has achieved a $9 billion valuation and processes over 230 million monthly queries, distinguishing itself from traditional search engines by offering direct answers rather than lists of links.

Advertising revenue: Perplexity's primary monetization strategy beyond subscriptions, implemented through sponsored follow-up questions and display advertisements positioned adjacent to AI-generated responses. The platform operates on a CPM model with rates exceeding $50, significantly higher than typical display advertising, and shares revenue with publisher partners when their content is referenced in answers.

AI search: A new category of search technology that uses artificial intelligence to understand queries and generate comprehensive answers rather than returning lists of websites. This approach represents a fundamental shift from traditional keyword-based search, enabling users to receive direct answers with citations while maintaining conversational interaction patterns throughout their information-seeking process.

Revenue sharing: Perplexity's publisher partnership program launched in July 2024 that compensates content creators when their articles are cited in AI-generated responses. Publishers receive monetary compensation when users ask questions and Perplexity generates advertising revenue from citing their content, with multiple revenue shares available when several articles from one publisher appear in a single answer.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions): The pricing model used by Perplexity for its advertising platform, where advertisers pay for every thousand times their sponsored content appears to users. According to sources familiar with the platform's pricing structure, Perplexity's CPM rates exceed $50, substantially higher than industry averages for display advertising which typically range from $2.50 to $11.10 depending on format and placement.

Sponsored questions: The primary advertising format implemented by Perplexity, appearing as clearly labeled follow-up questions positioned alongside AI-generated answers. These questions are created by advertisers but the responses remain generated by Perplexity's AI technology rather than being written or edited by the sponsoring brands, maintaining the platform's commitment to unbiased information delivery.

Publisher partnerships: Strategic relationships between Perplexity and content creators including major media outlets like Fortune, Time, The Texas Tribune, and WordPress, designed to fairly compensate publishers for content usage while building a sustainable revenue-sharing ecosystem. These partnerships address concerns about content attribution and provide publishers with new monetization opportunities in the AI-powered information landscape.

User demographics: Perplexity's audience profile characterized by high education levels and professional status, with 80% holding undergraduate degrees, 30% in senior leadership positions, and 65% working in high-income white-collar professions including medicine, law, and software engineering. This demographic composition makes the platform attractive to advertisers targeting affluent, educated consumers with significant purchasing power.

Large language models: The artificial intelligence technology powering Perplexity's search capabilities, enabling the platform to understand natural language queries, analyze web content, and generate comprehensive responses with proper attribution. These models allow Perplexity to maintain conversational interactions while processing complex information requests and synthesizing data from multiple sources into coherent answers.

Content attribution: The system by which Perplexity provides citations and references for information used in its AI-generated responses, addressing copyright concerns and ensuring proper credit to original content creators. This approach includes inline citations, publisher revenue sharing, and transparency measures designed to maintain ethical content usage while building sustainable relationships with media outlets and content platforms.