Perplexity announces Comet Plus, a subscription designed to connect readers, AI assistants and journalists within the same economic model. What changes for you who look for good answers on the web, and for the people who write the stories we use as sources? Here I explain it clearly and practically.
What Comet Plus is and why it matters
Comet Plus is a subscription that gives direct access to premium content from participating publishers and journalists. The idea is that, besides reading articles, your AI assistant can use that content to answer better and carry out tasks with higher-quality sources. This initiative was announced by Perplexity on August 25, 2025. (perplexity.ai)
Why does it matter? Because it breaks with the traditional clicks-and-pageviews model and proposes paying creators based on how their work is consumed today: human reads, citations in search answers and actions executed by AI agents. In other words, it recognizes that the value of an informative piece is not only who opens it, but how AI uses it to help people. (perplexity.ai)
How payments to publishers work
The model distributes revenue to publishers based on three types of traffic:
- Human visits (when a person reads the article)
- Citations in searches (when the content appears as a source in answers)
- Agent actions (when an automated assistant accesses or uses the content to complete a task)
This aims to align incentives: more quality and less clickbait, because publishers will receive part of the value generated by assistants and agents, not just by pageviews. (perplexity.ai)
Price, availability and how to join
Comet Plus will cost 5 USD as a standalone subscription. Perplexity's Pro and Max plans will include Comet Plus at no extra cost. Perplexity said it will share the initial list of publishing partners when Comet (the browser) is available to everyone. Interested publishers can contact Perplexity via publishers@perplexity.ai. (perplexity.ai)
Does this sound like a simple price change? Think instead about how you use the internet today: you don't just browse, you ask for summaries, comparisons and for an agent to do things for you. This model tries to compensate the people who produce the knowledge used for those actions.
Practical examples: what changes for each role
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If you are a reader: you could pay 5 USD so your answers and summaries come from paid, higher-quality sources instead of fragmented or sensational results.
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If you are a journalist or editor: instead of relying only on ads and paywalls, you'll receive income each time an assistant uses your work to answer or complete tasks. That can change the sustainability of longform and investigative reporting.
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If you are a developer of tools or agents: you will be able to integrate premium sources with clear permissions and a compensation model that avoids using content without paying its creators.
Doubts and risks to watch
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Transparency: it will be important to see how each type of traffic is measured and exactly how the money is split. Without clear metrics, the system could favor easily referenced content.
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Partner selection: the program's quality will depend on which outlets join and under what conditions; the promise is to distribute revenue to participants, but details are still missing.
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Privacy and control: when an agent accesses content on your behalf, we need guarantees about what data is shared and how personal subscriptions are respected.
What you could do now
- If you are a curious reader, wait for the list of publishers and decide if the sources give you more value for 5 USD a month.
- If you work at a media outlet, review the proposal and contact Perplexity if you're interested in joining the program. (perplexity.ai)
- If you build tools with agents, think about how to integrate permissions and payment models to respect and compensate creators.
Perplexity presents Comet Plus as a bet to make the web more useful and better compensated in the AI era. It's not the only possible answer, but it opens a concrete path for journalists and analysts to receive part of the value their work generates when AI uses it. Do you think that's enough? That will be the discussion in the coming months as the partner list is published and we see the real impact on income and quality.