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 on to AI crawlers.
The AI search company confirmed the move after Time began placing ads inside markdown versions of its webpages which are intended for AI systems quite 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 many 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 usual HTML page.
The sponsored material is structured as often asked questions containing information supplied and approved by advertisers and is labelled as sponsored content. The advertising doesn’t appear on the usual 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 corporations also use separate crawlers for various purposes. OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, GPTBot for content that may 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 quite than to coach 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 status and trust scores inside Perplexity’s search index.
Google defines cloaking as presenting different content to users and engines like google with the intention of manipulating search rankings and misleading users. Its spam policies also cover attempts to govern generative AI responses in Google Search.
Google has not said that Time’s advertising format violates those policies. Time and Mobian describe the fabric as labelled advertising, while Perplexity objects to its crawler receiving content that doesn’t 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 resolve whether to make use of.
The experiments come as generative AI services send more referral traffic to retail web sites. Adobe Analytics found that traffic from generative AI sources to US retail sites increased 393% yr on yr between January and March 2026.
Adobe’s figures measure individuals who clicked from AI services to retail web sites, quite than the performance of advertisements geared toward AI crawlers.
Ally Bank is amongst the businesses testing Time’s format. PMI can also be participating within the trial, which is meant to look at how information in regards to the organisation and its areas of labor appears in AI-driven environments, in line with comments from CMO Menaka Gopinath reported by Business Insider.
AI platforms set their very own business routes
AI corporations are also developing their very own systems for receiving business information from businesses. OpenAI allows merchants to submit structured product feeds containing details reminiscent of descriptions, images, prices, reviews, and availability to be used 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 individually from its chat model and don’t influence ChatGPT’s answers.
Time sells one agent commercial for every markdown page and allows campaigns to be placed against chosen content or date ranges. The publisher has not disclosed pricing for the format.
Perplexity’s decision signifies that making sponsored material available to a crawler doesn’t 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 usage of AI materially affects the authenticity, identity, or representation of advertising in ways in which can mislead consumers.
The framework doesn’t specifically address advertising delivered to AI crawlers.
Other major AI providers haven’t publicly adopted the identical position as Perplexity. Business Insider reported that OpenAI and Google declined to say whether or not they would take similar motion, while Anthropic didn’t reply to its request for comment.
Time chief operating officer Mark Howard also told Business Insider that the publisher had contacted Perplexity to debate standards and safeguards for advertising delivered to AI systems.
(Photo by Igor Omilaev)
See also: How Reddit uses community conversations to enhance ad targeting
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