Perplexity is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup whose new search engine hopes to challenge Google and Bing.
Key Details
- Perplexity AI was founded in 2022 by former members of Meta Platforms, Quora, Bing, OpenAI, and Databricks and has joined the AI arms race with its own AI-powered search engine.
- The company launched a browser version of its app in February, followed by a free iPhone app in March. The browser version saw 10 million monthly visits in February.
- Perplexity announced on March 28 that it has successfully closed a Series A investment round of $25.6 million, including prominent investors and CEOs behind companies like Alphabet, Tesla, Open AI, Github, and Microsoft.
Why It’s Important
The launch of ChatGPT on November 30 set the tech world ablaze, resulting in five months of rapid growth and development for AI. Chatbots have been a highly sought-after feature for nearly every tech company, with Microsoft’s AI-enabled Bing, Google’s Bard, and Baidu’s Ernie Bot taking the first steps at leading the industry with search engine options.
Perplexity AI is a smaller name in the AI arms race, but its new browser and app have already notably addressed one of the most serious problems facing chatbot implementation. ChatGPT and Bard AI have been scrutinized for their tendencies to site incorrect information. Perplexity solves this problem have allowing the AI to show its direct sources, allowing users to verify the source of information.
Perplexity also gives users a slick user interface that allows readers to specify which sources are used, offers a related-questions sections for follow-up answers, and has the ability to answer contextual follow-up questions to previous inquiries.
“We are introducing sign ups and more advanced features for personalization,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas tells Fortune. “[These new features are the first steps in our] evolution as a consumer company.”