Here’s what you need to know about Perplexity’s Andrew Beck — the exec convincing advertisers to get involved

And what a job it is: leading an AI startup’s bold attempt to challenge Google’s auction-based advertising system, where marketers offer sponsored links for search queries. Instead, Perplexity’s model allows marketers to sponsor questions and generate advertiser-approved AI-generated answers. The twist is that it relies on CPM over CPC, which is an unexpected approach for an AI search engine.

These ads launched in Novemberand to call it a baptism of fire for Beck would be putting it mildly. In the shadow of the lawsuit, News Corp has had to drum up interest from advertisers while getting up to speed in an industry where it is still an outsider. Which means Beck is very much the embodiment of his employer: ambitious, unproven, and learning on the fly. It’s true that building an advertising business is a team sport, but Beck is one to get his hands dirty.

“In the few email interactions I’ve had with Andrew Beck, he’s been extremely polite, eager to explore options with us, and very open to what they were looking for in initial charter advertising options,” said the group’s vice president of search media solutions. at Basis Technologies, Robert Kurtz, who spoke with Beck about potential testing opportunities in the last quarter of 2024 as well as the first quarter of 2025. “And we’ve been invited to meet in person with commitments at industry events. It occupies a role typical of ad tech companies trying to break into mainstream ad buyers.”

While Beck’s role may be typical of platforms chasing ad dollars, he’s anything but.

In his previous three employee roles at Gopuff, rideOS and Uber over the past decade, Beck has led business development tasks, but rarely involved advertising. But that non-advertising experience, along with his status as an outsider in the industry, could be a real win for Perplexity. After all, while the tech company is trying to make inroads with advertisers, Perplexity is still trying to approach advertising in a whole new way.

“I want more dynamic people who also have product skills, because we’re literally building the product with advertisers,” said Perplexity’s chief commercial officer Dmitry Shevelenko. “We didn’t just want to say here’s the spec sheet, take it or leave it. We wanted it to be an inclusive process.” So in Beck’s case, “it’s a very different skill set than a commission-driven sales rep, so it’s very intentional,” he added.

And like any startup, each team member will wear many hats when building a team. This does not mean that traditional sales administrators will not be needed at all. In fact, Perplexity has already hired Taz Patel to lead the ad, along with several individuals who have also joined Beck and Shevelenko in the new year.

Shevelenko—Beck’s boss—pointed out that he knew Beck could thrive in an ambiguous environment and help create something entirely new that didn’t follow the old traditional advertising playbooks.

“It was a deliberate choice not to have someone with a lot of advertising experience, because that person would have blinders on and just fall into the trap of rebuilding old tracks,” he said.

But that outsider status may be exactly why Perplexity hired Beck for this big job. Bringing on someone like Beck — untethered to a traditional advertising roster — frees Perplexity from the old thinking that often shapes the industry. His experience growing businesses and navigating uncharted territory positions him to approach advertising with a fresh perspective that aligns with Perplexity’s ambition to challenge the status quo.

Example: A confused decision to adopt a CPM model over CPC. Maybe that choice won’t be without someone like Beck. It’s a move that forces marketers to reevaluate their instincts, signaling that Perplexity isn’t here to play by the old rules.

After all, there will always be some advertisers who want to be the first movers on a new platform and will be able to do so internally. On the other hand, there will always be more conservative advertisers who follow the traditional playbook and find challenges with new things that go outside of that.

Simply put, none of these marketing interests phase the Perplexity team. It simply comes with the territory of launching a brand new product into the advertising space that goes against the traditional style.

According to Michelle Merklin, VP of Paid Search Innovation and Growth at Tinuiti, this transition period will be challenging for both Perplexity and marketers.

“This is a new approach that is right in the gray area and relies on bringing together different previously disparate marketing mentalities – and often separate marketing teams,” she said. “Just as we’re seeing convergence in social search, like TikTok search ads, it will require the same kind of shift in perception about how to build a media strategy for this new addition to the ‘messy middle’ of marketing.”

For every marketer who bristles at this approach, especially when it comes to using Perplexity’s CPM in a traditionally CPC-driven world, there are others who see its potential. CPM, for example, effectively shifts focus from clicks to brand awareness. But the team isn’t trying to get people to click away from Perplexity. Therefore, the CPC model does not make sense in this case when the value for advertisers is impressions and considerations.

“These less intrusive but higher funnel advertising options make sense, but may not align with how most in the industry perceive search engine advertising and KPIs,” Kurtz said.

Which simply means that advertisers will need to adapt their approaches to suit the unique capabilities and behaviors of Perplexity’s audience. “While many people in the advertising industry are comfortable with conventional search ads, it’s refreshing to see a new direction in a familiar space,” he added.

The fact is that this will require a change in the mindset of marketers – and such things rarely happen quickly. After all, it is human behavior that is the hardest and often the slowest to change. Perplexity seems committed to the long haul. And Beck, in turn, seems fair and measured.

“I definitely felt like advertising was 100% new to him [Beck] and his team,” said a media buyer at one of the holding companies. “But they were quick learners, asking all the right questions and I felt they were responding to the market. Every week Andrew was better prepared – I looked at him as a partner the whole way through.”

It’s a perspective shared by another advertising executive, who preferred to remain anonymous, who said Beck came across as smooth and confident in their interactions. “I came away with this as someone who at least has a good understanding of how they plan to roll out advertising and why they made the decisions they made,” they said.

These views will undoubtedly evolve. Beck has only been with Perplexity for six months at the time of writing. But the longer it stays, the more visible it will become—especially as Perplexity tries to outpace its competitors in monetizing generative AI.

To do this, it targets the demand generation budget, or rather the spend that would otherwise go to the brand’s social media or brand display. So while it may take some time for CMOs to get to grips with Perplexity’s new concept, Shevelenko emphasized that there is already buy-in from CEOs and individuals at the top of the organizations they’re targeting. Why? Because they are already Perplexity users.

Speaking of the future, if the first six months have been hectic for Beck, then the next 12 months will be pivotal.

Perplexity’s product roadmap is set to include improving targeting on the platform and finding ways to incorporate the entire marketing funnel into one response, as well as having action embedded in the same place. It’s still unclear how many advertisers are actually on board, as Shevelenko only pointed to the ones Perplexity currently publishes: Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann and PMG. Although he said there will be more announcements soon.

Another area the team likes to look at is checking when marketers are advertising against queries, but the answer to those queries is still unknown and could trigger any number of responses. “We’ve already put up a lot of guardrails in terms of brand safety,” Shevelenko said. “I think it’s going to be a strong horizon where it’s going to be really personalized advertising.”

Furthermore, Perplexity will even look to add self-service tools to support SMBs, although no timeline has been set for this. Right now we’re focusing on securing a core advertising base and building from there.

As Shevelenko said, he wants Perplexity to become the go-to platform for the ad partners they work with.

To achieve that, Shevelenko continued, at the CMO level, organizations should make a long-term commitment to Perplexity, though he didn’t share specifics about the type of business or the numbers.

“We want them to feel that confusion is the foundation of how they grow and succeed in terms of making their brand aware of our audience,” he said. “That’s what success looks like, and I’m sure we can expand from there.”

Which means that while Beck may have his work cut out for him, thanks to the familiar team at Shevelenko, along with some other colleagues who previously worked together at Uber, the journey will have a lot more support.

“He [Beck] he’s taking on a role that’s typical of ad tech companies trying to break into big ad buyers,” Kurtz said. “If Perplexity grows rapidly, Andrew could play a significant role in the industry.”