Perplexity's $42.5M publisher peace offering

PLUS: Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple, OpenAI

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. After months of tension with publishers, Perplexity is finally opening its wallet — introducing a $42.5M revenue-sharing program that acknowledges AI agents consume content just like humans do.

The company's new Comet Plus subscription attempts to create new economics for an industry watching its traditional model collapse, but publishers might find the math doesn't quite add up.

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Perplexity’s $42.5M publisher revenue program

  • Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple, OpenAI

  • Learn effectively with ChatGPT's "Study & Learn" mode

  • Microsoft’s SOTA text-to-speech model

  • 4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

PERPLEXITY

Image source: Perplexity

The Rundown: Perplexity just unveiled a new revenue-sharing initiative that allocates $42.5M to publishers whose content appears in AI search results, introducing a $5 monthly Comet Plus subscription that gives media outlets 80% of proceeds.

The details:

  • Publishers will earn money when their articles generate traffic via Perplexity's Comet browser, appear in searches, or are included in tasks by the AI assistant.

  • The program launches amid active copyright lawsuits from News Corp's Dow Jones and cease-and-desist orders from both Forbes and Condé Nast.

  • Perplexity distributes all subscription revenue to publishers minus compute costs, with Pro and Max users getting Comet Plus bundled into existing plans.

  • CEO Aravand Srinivas said Comet Plus will be “the equivalent of Apple News+ + for AIs and humans to consume internet content.”

Why it matters: While legal issues likely play a big factor in this new shift, the model is one of the first to acknowledge the reality of content clicks occurring via AI agents as much as humans. But the economics of splitting revenue across a $5 subscription feels like pennies on the dollar for outlets struggling with finances in the AI era.

TOGETHER WITH SANA

The Rundown:  Sana Agents just got a major boost with GPT-5, now capable of instantly automating complex workflows like syncing Salesforce, updating docs, and sending follow-ups — all in one command. Launch no-code AI agents in minutes to adapt reports on the fly and connect to your entire tool stack.

What you can do now:

  • Powerful multi-step workflow automation with AI agents

  • Generate dynamic, context-aware outputs like docs, presentations, apps, and more

  • Connect 100+ enterprise-grade integrations, including Slack, Teams, and your CRM

XAI, APPLE, & OPENAI

Image source: GPT-image / The Rundown

The Rundown: Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, just filed a lawsuit in Texas against both Apple and OpenAI, alleging that the iPhone maker’s exclusive partnership surrounding ChatGPT is an antitrust violation that locks out rivals like Grok in the App Store.

The details:

  • The complaint claims Apple’s integration of ChatGPT into iOS “forces” users toward OAI’s tool, discouraging downloads of competing apps like Grok and X.

  • xAI also accused Apple of manipulating App Store rankings and excluding its apps from “must-have” sections, while prominently featuring ChatGPT.

  • The lawsuit seeks billions in damages, arguing the partnership creates an illegal "moat" that gives OpenAI access to hundreds of millions of iPhone users.

  • OpenAI called the suit part of Musk’s “ongoing pattern of harassment,” while Apple maintained its App Store is designed to be “fair and free of bias.”

Why it matters: Elon wasn’t bluffing in his X tirade against both Apple and Sam Altman earlier this month, but this wouldn’t be the first time Apple’s been faced with legal accusations of operating a walled garden. The lawsuit could set the first precedent around AI market competition just as it enters mainstream adoption.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to use ChatGPT's Study & Learn flow to understand complex topics through guided, step-by-step problem-solving and interactive quizzes that prevent the "copy-the-answer" trap.

Step-by-step:

  1. In ChatGPT, select "GPT-5" → click "+" → open "More" settings → toggle on "Study & Learn"

  2. Set response time: Auto (default), Instant (simple prompts), or Thinking (for detailed scaffolding)

  3. Prompt with structure: "Help me solve [topic] step by step. Ask me for each intermediate value before moving on" or "Quiz me on [subject] with MCQ and short answers"

  4. Work through guided steps — ChatGPT acts as a tutor, checking each answer before revealing the next step

  5. Download or save your session for future reference and study notes

Pro tip: Use specific instructions like "Socratic hints only" or "Don't reveal final answer until I ask" for better learning retention. Alternate between explanations and quizzes, and request variations like "Same problem, new numbers" or "Find my mistake" to deepen understanding.

PRESENTED BY CONCIERGE

The Rundown: Today’s SaaS buyers use AI every day to answer their questions, and have no patience for a scavenger hunt. Concierge is a Perplexity-style answer engine, trained on your company, that lives on your website and delivers accurate, personalized responses to ultra-specific questions.

Modern brands use Concierge to:

  • Handle any buyer question (no matter how technical) with advanced RAG on your sources & media

  • Control and visibility over every conversation, with guardrails and sentiment analysis

  • Build trust with website visitors before they are willing to commit to a demo

Try Concierge to turn every question into a conversation — and every conversation into revenue.

MICROSOFT

Image source: Microsoft

The Rundown: Microsoft just released VibeVoice, a new open-source text-to-speech model built to handle long-form audio and capable of generating up to 90 minutes of multi-speaker conversational audio using just 1.5B parameters.

The details:

  • The model generates podcast-quality conversations with up to four different voices, maintaining speakers’ unique characteristics for hour-long dialogues.

  • Microsoft achieved major efficiency upgrades, improving audio data compression 80x and allowing the tech to run on consumer devices.

  • Microsoft integrated Qwen2.5 to enable the natural turn-taking and contextually aware speech patterns that occur in lengthy conversations.

  • Built-in safeguards automatically insert "generated by AI" disclaimers and hidden watermarks into audio files, allowing verification of synthetic content.

Why it matters: While previous models could handle conversations between two, the ability to coordinate four voices across long-form conversations is wild for any model — let alone an open-source one small enough to run on consumer devices. We’re about to move from short AI podcasts to full panels of AI speakers doing long-form content.

QUICK HITS

  • 🗣️ VibeVoice - Microsoft’s new open-source, long-form text-to-speech model

  • 🌎 Mirage 2 - Generate real-time, playable world engines from text or images

  • 🎥 MuseStreamer 2.0 - Baidu’s upgraded image-to-video model

  • 📚 AI Elements - Vercel’s customizable React components for AI interfaces

YouTube is facing backlash after creators discovered the platform using AI to apply effects like unblur, denoise, and clarity to videos without notice or permission.

Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Greg Brockman and A16z, are launching Leading the Future, a super-PAC to push a pro-AI agenda at the U.S. midterm elections.

Nvidia announced that its Jetson Thor robotics computer is now generally available to provide robotic systems the ability to run AI and operate intelligently in the real world.

Google introduced a new multilingual upgrade to NotebookLM, expanding its Video and Audio Overviews features to 80 languages.

Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative researchers introduced rbio1, a biology-specific reasoning model designed to assist scientists with biological studies.

Brave uncovered a security vulnerability in Perplexity’s Comet browser, which allowed for malicious prompt injections to give bad actors control over the agentic browser.

COMMUNITY

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Don F. in Los Angeles, CA:

"I use Make.com to generate a weekly automation that runs every Sunday night to help me plan my meals for the week. I created a document containing the last 6 months of my meal titles and grocery lists, which an LLM scans. It then sends five new meal ideas and a list of ingredients into a draft folder on my computer. I configured parameters in the prompt, including meals my kids like and dislike (such as avoiding spicy foods), which meals are repeatable, and ordered the ingredient list to make my supermarket route easier (fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, etc.). I can then edit the suggestions, select my favorite meals, and email the list to myself."

How do you use AI? Tell us here.

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Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown

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