Perplexity AI Blocks Time USA LLC Agent Ads Over Cloaking
AI search company Perplexity AI blocked text-only Agent Ads launched by Time USA, LLC and Mobian Inc., warning that serving different content to bots constitutes spam.
The publisher Time USA, LLC, in partnership with adtech company Mobian Inc., launched an experiment featuring Agent Ads, which are stripped-down, text-only versions of webpages designed specifically for AI crawlers. Brands including Ally Bank and the Project Management Institute used these ads to provide verifiable facts to AI models to increase their visibility and accuracy within chatbots.
Perplexity AI, an AI search company, responded by blocking these ads and warning that such cloaking practices—serving different content to bots than to humans—could lead to publishers being downranked in its search index. Perplexity AI characterized the practice as a rebranding of spam.
Mobian Inc. CEO Jonah Goodhart defended the ads as transparent and factual. In response to the conflict, Time USA, LLC has contacted Perplexity AI to discuss the establishment of standards for responsible AI advertising.
