Time Magazine seeks to influence AI models: Perplexity pushes back

Time Magazine is experimenting with a new advertising model aimed not at human readers but specifically at AI crawlers such as ClaudeBot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. The publisher is also making its articles available in simplified Markdown versions that are easier for AI systems to process. These versions include sponsored content designed to influence which information AI search engines and language models pick up about brands and reproduce in their answers. The sponsored material is placed in so-called evergreen content, which remains relevant for longer than day-to-day news stories.

The logic behind these so-called “Agent Ads” reflects the way web traffic is changing. More than half of internet traffic is now generated by non-human users. At the same time, people are increasingly relying on AI-generated summaries. Agent Ads therefore create a kind of “parallel web” that raises questions about the transparency and potential manipulation of AI-generated answers.

Perplexity has already responded to Time’s approach and started blocking this type of advertising. The company classifies the practice as deceptive advertising and has warned publishers whose content is promoted in this way that it could damage their reputation and reduce their trustworthiness within Perplexity’s own AI search index.

By Maria Kleiner

Source: Heise, 12 August 2026, by Carolin Riethmüller