Quora owns the AI chatbot platform Poe which has introduced a new source of income for bot creators by launching on Monday a revenue model that enables creators to charge a per-message price for their bots so they can make money each time somebody messages them. The firm had been announced and launched on October 2023 a revenue-sharing program under which the creators would get a share of the earnings generated by their users when they subscribed to Poe's premium product.

First launched by Quora in February 2023, Poe lets users try out a range of AI chatbots including those from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others. The idea : Give consumers an easy way to play with new AI technologies in one place -- and perhaps, at the same time, give Quora a chance at new content.

The new take of the creator economy on product revenues is that it rewards AI fans for producing "prompt bots" and offers similar developer-created server bots integrated with Poe's AI.

Last fall, Quora said it would begin to offer a revenue-sharing program with bot creators and that it would "soon" begin to offer the option for creators to set a per-message fee on their bots. That was near five months ago — not very "soon" — but the latter is now going live.

According to Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, who explained on Monday that Poe users will see only message points for each bot, which encompasses the same points they have as either a free user or a Poe subscriber. Still, he said the creators will be paid in dollars.

Now, we're excited to announce another way developers of POE based models and bot creators can monetize on the @poe_platform: price per message! Creators are now able to charge users a price per message on their bots and earn revenue with every single user's message. Thread ???? pic.twitter.com/yx5mKgGoSQ
— Adam D'Angelo (@adamdangelo) April 8, 2024

This pricing mechanism is important for developers with high model inference or API costs, D'Angelo said in a post on X. "Our goal is to enable a thriving ecosystem of model developers and bot creators who build on top of models, and covering these operational costs is a key part of that," he added.

The new revenue model is likely to spark the development of new types of bots-from tutoring and knowledge to assistants and analysis, storytelling, and image generation, D'Angelo believes.

Currently available only to U.S. bot creators, the product will roll out around the world over time. It complements the creator monetization program, through which Poe pays up to $20 per subscriber-partly due to having activated a creator's bots.

In addition to this, Poe launched an advanced analytics dashboard that shows the average earnings for creators' bots across paywalls, subscriptions, and messages. These insights refresh daily, ensuring creators will be able to track better ways how their pricing plays a role in the bot usage and revenue.