AI search platform Perplexity names UM media AOR

Generative AI search platform Perplexity has appointed IPG Mediabrands’ UM as its first media agency of record, the company exclusively shared with Campaign US on Tuesday.

UM won the account without pitching, instead reaching out to Perplexity after seeing an article posted earlier this year about the AI company’s plans to launch an ads business, said Chad Stoller, global chief innovation officer at UM. 

Conversations between the two quickly evolved from questions about Perplexity’s advertising products to hypotheticals about how they could work together.

“On one of our first calls…we had on our head of investment, and we went right from working from an insight to building an activation around it,” Stoller said.

Perplexity will also work with UM to increase its own awareness. The brand will unveil its first media buy placed by UM, a marquee spot during a major sports event, later this month. The buy cost seven figures, said Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer at Perplexity.

He declined to provide the size of Perplexity’s account in annual billings.

UM will handle media buying and serve as Perplexity’s U.S. media advisor as well as its partner on ad product development. Stoller will lead a core team of six employees staffing the account.

Perplexity’s partnership with UM marks its first venture into advertising, which it’s now pursuing to break through the sea of AI search companies and gain mass awareness.

It’s also riding a wave of momentum. In late April, TechCrunch reported that Perplexity raised $250 million in funding from investors including Jeff Bezos, securing a valuation between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. That month, it also announced that it would begin selling ads within the related questions it suggests to users following their prompts.

To bore through the thick layer of AI news dominating headlines, Perplexity is prioritizing short-lived, high-impact buys over long-lasting campaigns.

“When you’re launching a new brand to a mass audience, you need to make asymmetric bets,” Shevelenko said. “If we just do campaigns that have a linear payoff, that’s not going to help us grow the right way. We’re okay with taking a risk and failing in terms of it not landing and going viral, but doing something predictable that does okay but isn’t game-changing is the worst strategy for us.”

He added that through these buys, Perplexity aims to reach people who aren’t already familiar with the company.

“At first, there will be a focus toward the stuff that you don’t see on your phone and laptop,” he said. “People already talk a lot about us on social media.”

Perplexity recently passed $10 million in annual revenue and its mobile and desktop app grew 8.6% in February to around 50 million users. In late May, it launched a new feature called Pages that generates customizable webpages based on prompts from users.

Perplexity is on the rise as other AI-generated search engines emerge, such as the AI-generated answer snippets Google released publicly in May.

UM’s biggest goal is getting people who don’t yet use Perplexity to break out of their current search habits.

“Anybody who uses Perplexity says the only problem they have with it is breaking their muscle memory to do another search,” Stoller said. “You’re starting to see searches go from one consolidated place and they’re starting to fragment.”

UM scooped up Levi’s $142 million global media account in early May.