Why We’re Partnering With Perplexity

One of our key values at Automattic is that access to knowledge, software, and media is for everyone, not just the gatekeepers. That’s why we’ve built our company on the foundation of open source principles. And it’s why we’ve decided to partner with Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine that lets you research on the web like never before. Think of it like a mashup of a search engine, online encyclopedia, and AI-powered conversation—an entirely new way of surfacing knowledge. When you type in a question, Perplexity searches the internet for answers in real time and provides results that include footnotes, live updates, and links to the original source. 

Being part of Perplexity’s Publishing Partners Program means that knowledge from WordPress.com can now be included in the variety of answers that are served on Perplexity’s “Keep Exploring” section on their Discover pages. That means your articles will be included in their search index and your articles can be surfaced as an answer on their answer engine and Discover feed. If your website is referenced in a Perplexity search result where the company earns advertising revenue, you’ll be eligible for revenue share.   

Here’s an example of how it might look:

Perplexity is partnering with select media outlets like TIME, Der Spiegel, Fortune, The Texas Tribune, and Entrepreneur. WordPress.com’s network of incredible content creators makes us a desirable partner for a cutting-edge answer engine. In addition to the revenue share, the partnership offers a great opportunity to drive traffic to your website. 

We’ll share more details of how it works as this partnership evolves, including how we’ll be distributing revenue-share payments to those whose content qualifies. If you want to opt out, we already offer the ability to opt out of content sharing. And remember: We’re always experimenting. Building relationships with AI companies allows us to advocate on behalf of our customers; if we determine that the partnership isn’t a perfect match or doesn’t serve you, we’ll reevaluate what we’re doing, so that we stay true to our mission. 

The first line of our company’s creed is “I will never stop learning.” That’s the spirit in which we’re exploring our partnership with Perplexity. If this works out the way we hope it will, both sides win—an exciting new answer engine will have a wide pool of quality content to serve people, and you’ll get to share in the success of their platform.