Perplexity, the AI search startup has made its stand clear that it will not put ads inside its chatbot answers. As reported by Business Insider, speaking at a roundtable with reporters this week, executives said that company is focused on subscription and enterprise sales and not on advertising. The stance aligns Perplexity more closely with Anthropic, which has also rejected ads, and sets it apart from OpenAI, which is leaning heavily into ad‑based monetization.Perplexity is ramping up its business sales strategy and is now targeting large organisations and high-powered users such as finance professionals, CEOs and doctors. The company presently just has five people on its enterprise sales team but it plans to expand aggressively. This positions Perplexity against rivals like Glean, which helps employees search internal files and data with AI.

Perplexity prioritise revenue over reach

The report further adds that executives also mentioned that Perplexity will give prioritise revenue and retention over metrics like the number of questions answered. The company did not share the financial details but revealed that its revenue grew 4.7 times last year, hitting $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by October 2025. The company also pledged to keep a free tier available, but with rare limits.The move comes amid Silicon Valley skepticism. At an AI conference last year, investors informally voted Perplexity the company they’d most like to bet against, citing concerns about the wider AI bubble. Still, Perplexity insists it has been “busy building” rather than chasing hype, and executives argue that ads in AI answers undermine trust.By siding with Anthropic’s philosophy and rejecting OpenAI’s ad‑driven approach, Perplexity is betting that trust and enterprise adoption will be stronger long‑term drivers of growth.

Ads in ChatGPT

Recently, OpenAI started testing ads in ChatGPT. The company said it has started testing ads in the AI tool in the United States and will apply only to logged-in adult users on the Free and Go plans. “We’re starting to roll out a test for ads in ChatGPT today to a subset of free and Go users in the U.S,” OpenAI said in an X post adding “Ads do not influence ChatGPT’s answers. Ads are labeled as sponsored and visually separate from the response. Our goal is to give everyone access to ChatGPT for free with fewer limits, while protecting the trust they place in it for important and personal tasks.”