Generative AI search platform Perplexity has appointed IPG Mediabrands’ UM as its first media agency of record, the company exclusively shared with Campaign US on Tuesday.

UM won the account without pitching, instead reaching out to Perplexity after seeing an article posted earlier this year about the AI company’s plans to launch an ads business, said Chad Stoller, global chief innovation officer at UM.

Conversations between the two quickly evolved from questions about Perplexity’s advertising products to hypotheticals about how they could work together.

“On one of our first calls…we had on our head of investment, and we went right from working from an insight to building an activation around it,” Stoller said.

Read more in Campaign.