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Perplexity AI logo is seen in this illustration taken January 4, 2024. 

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Perplexity AI, the artificial intelligence startup that’s been embroiled in controversy due to accusations of plagiarizing content from media outlets, plans to start running ads on its search app in the fourth quarter, CNBC has learned.

The company, which specializes in AI-assisted search, is circulating a pitch deck, promoting the app’s reach and increasing usage. The company says its app has been downloaded more than 2 million times and has 230 million monthly users, while U.S. queries have increased eightfold in the past year, according to the presentation, which was viewed by CNBC.

Perplexity raised new funding in April that valued the company at more than $1 billion, doubling its valuation from three months earlier. But the app’s increasing popularity has highlighted concerns surrounding the ways the company surfaces content from other sources.

Forbes reported in June that it found a plagiarized version of one of its stories on Perplexity with no reference to the media outlet other than a small “F” logo at the bottom of the page. Weeks later, Wired said it also found evidence of Perplexity plagiarizing Wired stories, and reported that an IP address “almost certainly linked to Perplexity and not listed in its public IP range” visited its parent company’s websites more than 800 times in a three-month span.

The company told CNBC that, following the allegations, it made changes to how Perplexity’s Pages feature cites sources and also made updates so that its responses are better at citing outlets directly within the generated copy.

Last month, Perplexity debuted a revenue sharing model, giving publishers an opportunity to make money through the company’s search engine. Any time a user asks a question and Perplexity generates ad revenue from citing an article in its answer, Perplexity will share a percentage of that revenue with the publisher.

Media outlets and content platforms including Fortune, Time, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel and WordPress were among the first to join the company’s “Publishers Program.” Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business officer, told CNBC in a July interview that if three articles from one publisher were used in one answer, the partner would receive “triple the revenue share.” He said the company had been working on the feature since January and that its goal is to have 30 publishers enrolled by the end of the year.

With advertising, Perplexity will follow a model called CPM, or cost per thousand impressions, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. CPM prices will be more than $50, the source said. Search marketing firm Semrush wrote in a blog post last year that display ads on desktop typically have CPMs of around $2.50, while mobile videos have rates of about $11.10.

Perplexity said in its pitch deck that its key advertising categories initially would include topics like technology, health and pharmaceuticals, arts and entertainment, finance, and food and beverage. Advertisers will be able to sponsor “related questions” below answers and buy display ads to the right or a Perplexity-generated answer.

According to the presentation, more than eight in 10 Perplexity users have an undergraduate degree, while three in 10 are in a “senior leadership position,” and 65% are in “high-income white-collar professions,” such as medicine, law and software engineering.

AI-assisted search has been viewed by investors as one of Google’s key risks, as it potentially changes the way consumers access information online. OpenAI, which started the generative AI craze in late 2022 with ChatGPT, introduced a search engine last month called SearchGPT. In May, Google launched “AI Overviews” in search, allowing users to see a quick summary of answers at the top of results.

WATCH: AI startup Perplexity launches publisher program

AI start-up Perplexity launches publisher program

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

A worker delivers Amazon packages in San Francisco on Oct. 24, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon on Thursday announced Prime members can access new fixed pricing for treatment of conditions like erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, its latest effort to compete with other direct-to-consumer marketplaces such as Hims & Hers Health and Ro.

Shares of Hims & Hers fell as much as 17% on Thursday, on pace for its worst day.

Amazon said in a blog post that Prime members can see the cost of a telehealth visit and their desired treatment before they decide to proceed with care for five common issues. Patients can access treatment for anti-aging skin care starting at $10 a month; motion sickness for $2 per use; erectile dysfunction at $19 a month; eyelash growth at $43 a month, and men’s hair loss for $16 a month by using Amazon’s savings benefit Prime Rx at checkout.

Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in July 2022, and Thursday’s announcement builds on its existing pay-per-visit telehealth offering. Video visits through the service cost $49, and messaging visits cost $29 where available. Users can get treatment for more than 30 common conditions, including sinus infection and pink eye.

Medications filled through Amazon Pharmacy are eligible for discounted pricing and will be delivered to patients’ doors in standard Amazon packaging. Prime members will pay for the consultation and medication, but there are no additional fees, the blog post said.

Amazon has been trying to break into the lucrative health-care sector for years. The company launched its own online pharmacy in 2020 following its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, and later shuttered, a telehealth service called Amazon Care, as well as a line of health and wellness devices.

The company has also discontinued a secretive effort to develop an at-home fertility tracker, CNBC reported Wednesday.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still ‘a dominant threat’

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still 'a dominant threat'

Chelsea Manning: Censorship still a dominant threat

Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still “a dominant threat,” advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.

Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.

Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be “decentralized identification,” which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.

“Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who’s doing the censoring, and what the purpose is — and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you’re boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work,” Manning said.

“I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive,” she added.

“One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early ’90s, but make that available to more people.”

Nym Technologies Chief Security Officer Chelsea Manning at a press conference held with Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin in the Media Village to present NymVPN during the second day of Web Summit on November 13, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Asked how tech companies could make money in such a scenario, Manning said there would have to be “a better social contract” put in place to determine how information is shared and accessed.

“One of the things about distributed or decentralized identification is that through encryption you’re able to sort of check the box yourself, instead of having to depend on the company to provide you with a check box or an accept here, you’re making that decision from a technical perspective,” Manning said.

‘No longer secrecy versus transparency’

Manning, who works as a security consultant at Nym Technologies, a company that specializes in online privacy and security, was convicted of espionage and other charges at a court-martial in 2013 for leaking a trove of secret military files to online media publisher WikiLeaks.

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released in 2017, when former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Asked to what extent the environment has changed for whistleblowers today, Manning said, “We’re at an interesting time because information is everywhere. We have more information than ever.”

She added, “Countries and governments no longer seem to invest the same amount of time and effort in hiding information and keeping secrets. What countries seem to be doing now is they seem to be spending more time and energy spreading misinformation and disinformation.”

Manning said the challenge for whistleblowers now is to sort through the information to understand what is verifiable and authentic.

“It’s no longer secrecy versus transparency,” she added.

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of U.K. digital bank Zopa.

Zopa

LISBON, Portugal — British online lender Zopa is on track to double profits and increase annual revenue by more than a third this year amid bumper demand for its banking services, the company’s CEO told CNBC.

Zopa posted revenues of £222 million ($281.7 million) in 2023 and is expecting to cross the £300 million revenue milestone this year — that would mark a 35% annual jump.

The 2024 estimates are based on unaudited internal figures.

The firm also says it is on track to increase pre-tax profits twofold in 2024, after hitting £15.8 million last year.

Zopa, a regulated bank that is backed by Japanese giant SoftBank, has plans to venture into the world of current accounts next year as it looks to focus more on new products.

The company currently offers credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts that it offers through a mobile app — similar to other digital banks such as Monzo and Revolut which don’t operate physical branches.

“The business is doing really well. In 2024, we’ve hit or exceeded the plans across all metrics,” CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

He said the strong performance is coming off the back of gradually improving sentiment in the U.K. economy, where Zopa operates exclusively.

Commenting on Britain’s macroeconomic conditions, Janardana said, “While it has been a rough few years, in terms of consumers, they have continued to feel the pain slightly less this year than last year.”

The market is “still tight,” he noted, adding that fintech offerings such as Zopa’s — which typically provide higher savings rates than high-street banks — become “more important” during such times.

“The proposition has become more relevant, and while it’s tight for customers, we have had to be much more constrained in terms of who we can lend to,” he said, adding that Zopa has still been able to grow despite that.

A big priority for the business going forward is product, Janardana said. The firm is developing a current account product which would allow users to spend and manage their money more easily, in a similar fashion to mainstream banking providers like HSBC and Barclays, as well as fintech upstarts such as Monzo.

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“We believe that there is more that the consumer can have in the current account space,” Janardana said. “We expect that we will launch our current account with the general public sometime next year.”

Janardana said consumers can expect a “slick” experience from Zopa’s current account offering, including the ability to view and manage multiple account bank accounts from one interface and access to competitive savings rates.

IPO ‘not top of mind’

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