Perplexity has blocked advertising placed in AI-readable versions of Time’s webpages from influencing its search index, affecting an experiment that lets brands serve sponsored material directly to AI crawlers.
The AI search company confirmed the move after Time began placing ads inside markdown versions of its webpages that are intended for AI systems rather than human readers. Perplexity described the practice as deceptive advertising and warned that publishers using it risk a downgrade in its search index.
Time introduced the advertising format with adtech company Mobian. Ally Bank and the Project Management Institute (PMI) were among the brands testing it.
The ads appear in markdown versions of Time articles. Markdown provides a simplified, text-based version of a webpage with less visual formatting than the standard HTML page.
The sponsored material is structured as frequently asked questions containing information supplied and approved by advertisers and is labelled as sponsored content. The advertising does not appear on the standard webpages viewed by Time readers.
Testing reported by The Register found that AI crawlers including ClaudeBot, OAI-SearchBot, and PerplexityBot received versions containing sponsored content, while Google’s standard search crawler received the HTML presented to human visitors. The Register said it replicated the behaviour independently using a crawler simulation tool.
AI companies also use separate crawlers for different purposes. OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, GPTBot for content that can contribute to model improvement, and OAI-AdsBot for advertiser landing pages.
Perplexity similarly says PerplexityBot is used to surface and link webpages in its search results rather than to train foundation models.
Perplexity draws a line on AI-targeted ads
Perplexity has taken issue with serving its systems content that differs from what human visitors receive. The company confirmed that it had blocked Time’s markdown ads from influencing its search index and agents.
Jesse Dwyer, a Perplexity spokesperson, described the practice to Digiday as deceptive and said publishers using similar markdown advertising risk reductions to their reputation and trust scores within Perplexity’s search index.
Google defines cloaking as presenting different content to users and search engines with the intention of manipulating search rankings and misleading users. Its spam policies also cover attempts to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search.
Google has not said that Time’s advertising format violates those policies. Time and Mobian describe the material as labelled advertising, while Perplexity objects to its crawler receiving content that does not appear on the human-facing page.
Mobian has rejected Perplexity’s characterisation of the ads as deceptive. Jonah Goodhart, Mobian’s CEO, told Digiday that the format gives AI systems access to current, brand-approved information, which the models can then decide whether to use.
The experiments come as generative AI services send more referral traffic to retail websites. Adobe Analytics found that traffic from generative AI sources to US retail sites increased 393% year on year between January and March 2026.
Adobe’s figures measure people who clicked from AI services to retail websites, rather than the performance of advertisements aimed at AI crawlers.
Ally Bank is among the companies testing Time’s format. PMI is also participating in the trial, which is intended to examine how information about the organisation and its areas of work appears in AI-driven environments, according to comments from CMO Menaka Gopinath reported by Business Insider.
AI platforms set their own commercial routes
AI companies are also developing their own systems for receiving commercial information from businesses. OpenAI allows merchants to submit structured product feeds containing details such as descriptions, images, prices, reviews, and availability for use in ChatGPT product discovery.
OpenAI says ChatGPT selects product results independently and that those results are separate from advertisements. The company also operates OAI-AdsBot for advertiser landing pages submitted through its advertising systems.
OpenAI began testing advertisements in ChatGPT in February 2026. The company says ads run separately from its chat model and do not influence ChatGPT’s answers.
Time sells one agent advertisement for each markdown page and allows campaigns to be placed against selected content or date ranges. The publisher has not disclosed pricing for the format.
Perplexity’s decision means that making sponsored material available to a crawler does not guarantee that the platform will index it or use it in user-facing responses.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau released an AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework in January 2026, setting out disclosure guidance when the use of AI materially affects the authenticity, identity, or representation of advertising in ways that can mislead consumers.
The framework does not specifically address advertising delivered to AI crawlers.
Other major AI providers have not publicly adopted the same position as Perplexity. Business Insider reported that OpenAI and Google declined to say whether they would take similar action, while Anthropic did not respond to its request for comment.
Time chief operating officer Mark Howard also told Business Insider that the publisher had contacted Perplexity to discuss standards and safeguards for advertising delivered to AI systems.
(Photo by Igor Omilaev)
See also: How Reddit uses community conversations to improve ad targeting
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