9 facts to know about Perplexity AI, the AI ​​that wants to shake up Google

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Perplexity AI, the search engine powered entirely by artificial intelligence, is about to raise an additional $500 million. The startup is making no secret of its ambitions and intends to shake up Google's monopoly in its chosen sector.

Founded by a former employee of OpenAI and DeepMind

Perplexity AI was co-founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, an Indian engineer specializing in deep learning, reinforcement learning, and generative models. At just 30 years old, he already boasts a very solid experience, having notably worked at OpenAI and DeepMind. Srinivas is now the CEO of Perplexity AI.

Powered by generative AI, the platform acts as a search engine and an assistant at the same time. It scans the web in real time to gather information, then summarizes it into clear, concise answers. It provides citations and links to original sources, as well as a conversational interface for follow-up questions and deeper exploration of certain topics.

A valuation tripled in just a few months

The startup is set to raise $500 million, which would bring its valuation to $9 billion, three times more than its previous funding round in June. This fundraising, Perplexity’s fourth of the year, is led by venture capital firm Venture Partners, which also holds a seat on its board of directors.

The operation reflects the strong enthusiasm of investors for generative AI, and makes Perplexity AI one of the most promising young shoots in the sector.

Jeff Bezos bet on Perplexity AI

The company’s model attracts not only venture capitalists, but also established players in the technology industry. This is particularly the case for Jeff Bezos, who invested in Perplexity AI in January 2024.

Other big names have supported it, such as chip giant NVIDIA, cloud specialist Databricks and Yann Le Cun, a prominent AI researcher who is now scientific director at Meta.

The platform is based on several language models

Perplexity has developed its own large language models (LLMs) to power its search engine: Sonar Large and Sonar Huge. They are based on Meta’s open-source Llama 3 model, then refined by the startup using its own training data.

In addition, the platform relies on some of the most popular LLMs currently available, namely GPT-4, Claude 3.5, Mistral Large, Llama 3, and Grok-2.

A paid version

While Perplexity AI is available for free, a paid subscription for $20 per month is also available. It guarantees 500 daily pro searches, a feature that offers advanced options such as multi-step reasoning to answer complex queries, analysis of search results and launching additional searches based on previous conclusions.

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The subscription also offers access to the most powerful LLMs on the market, as well as easy access to technical support. Perplexity also markets its API to companies.

Innovative features

The platform offers a Discover tab specifically adapted to the user, and also allows them to create their own space dedicated to a theme. This can be shared, which can be particularly useful for research groups, for example. It is also possible to indicate specific sources that the AI ​​should consult for its research. In addition, Perplexity AI is able to analyze images, PDFs and texts.

Controversies with multiple media

Like other artificial intelligence startups, Perplexity AI has drawn the ire of several major American media outlets. Starting with Forbes, which criticized it last June for sharing excerpts from its articles without citing them. The New York Times also stepped up to the plate, sending a letter to the startup urging it to stop using its content in its search results.

More recently, Dow Jones, the parent company of the Wall Street Journall, and the New York Post have taken action. They filed a complaint against the platform for the use of their articles, denouncing an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists. For its part, the company has announced that it is considering commercial agreements ” mutually beneficial » with the media.

Live monitoring of the presidential elections

On November 5, 2024, Perplexity AI deployed a hub specially dedicated to the American elections, allowing live monitoring of the progress of the vote. While this is not surprising for a search engine, Google having launched the same functionality, it should not be forgotten that the platform is entirely powered by AI.

However, generative artificial intelligences sometimes tend to hallucinate, and therefore to pretend that false information is true. Perplexity is the only AI platform to have offered such a tool, demonstrating its ambition to compete with well-established search engines.

Perplexity is evolving in a sector in full renewal, highly competitive

And it will not be an easy task. Because in addition to having to rub shoulders with a behemoth like Google, Perplexity AI must also compete with other newcomers like SearchGPT, the brand new platform signed OpenAI. Historical players are also incorporating artificial intelligence into their solutions, making the market even more competitive.

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