Perplexity AI, Inc., or simply Perplexity, is an American privately held software company that provides a web search engine processing user queries and synthesizing responses. Its products use large language models and include web search capabilities that deliver answers based on current internet content, citing the sources used. A free public version is available, while a paid Pro subscription offers access to more advanced language models and additional features.
Founded in August 2022, Perplexity has grown rapidly, reaching a valuation of US$20 billion as of September 2025. The company has also faced legal scrutiny over allegations of copyright infringement, unauthorized content use, and trademark issues from major media organizations, including the BBC, Dow Jones, and The New York Times. Separate analyses by Wired and, later, Cloudflare found that Perplexity uses undisclosed web crawlers with spoofed user-agent strings to scrape websites that prohibit or block web scraping.
History
Perplexity AI, Inc., was founded in August 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, engineers with backgrounds in back-end systems, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The company launched its main search engine on December 7, 2022, and subsequently released a Google Chrome extension and apps for iOS and Android. In February 2023, Perplexity reported two million unique visitors. By April 2024, it had raised $165 million in funding, valuing the company at over $1 billion. As of June 2025, Perplexity closed a $500 million funding round, elevating its valuation to $14 billion. Investors have included Jeff Bezos, Tobias Lütke, Nat Friedman, Nvidia, and Databricks, as well as 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm associated with Donald Trump Jr.
In July 2024, Perplexity announced a publishers' program to share advertising revenue with partners. On January 18, 2025, the day before the impending U.S. ban on TikTok, Perplexity submitted a proposal for a merger with TikTok US. On August 12, 2025, Perplexity made a bid to purchase Chrome from Google for $34.5 billion, stating that the sale could remedy antitrust litigation against Google, where a judge was considering compelling the sale of Chrome. In December 2025, Cristiano Ronaldo took an undisclosed stake in Perplexity and entered a global brand partnership.
As of early 2026, Perplexity reached a valuation of $21.21 billion following its Series E-6 funding round. In January 2026, the company entered a three-year, $750 million commitment with Microsoft Azure to secure GPU capacity. In February 2026, Perplexity transitioned to a subscription-first model by discontinuing its AI-integrated advertising strategy, with leadership stating this move was intended to preserve user trust in the "answer engine," prioritizing objective results over ad revenue.
Products and Services
Search Engine Web Portal
Perplexity's primary offering is a search engine that uses large language models to generate responses to user queries by searching and summarizing web-based content. It is available to web users without charge or registration, following a freemium model.
Perplexity Pro
Perplexity Pro is a subscription tier that includes stronger security, data protection, and additional tools. It allows users to select between backend models such as GPT-5.4, Claude 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro. The company has also developed its own models, Sonar (based on Llama 3.3) and R1 1776 (based on DeepSeek R1).
Internal Knowledge Search
Internal Knowledge Search enables Pro and Enterprise Pro users to browse web content and their internal documents simultaneously. It allows users to upload and search through files in Excel, Word, PDF, and other common formats. Enterprise Pro users can upload and index up to 500 files.
Search API
Perplexity's Search API provides AI developers with programmatic access to the company's search infrastructure.
Shopping Hub
Perplexity's Shopping Hub is an online shopping platform that generates product recommendations and enables direct purchases through Perplexity's interface. It was launched in November 2024 with backing by Amazon and Nvidia.
Finance
In October 2024, Perplexity launched finance-focused features, including software that tracks stock prices and company earnings data, and basic financial analysis tools. The platform sources financial data from Financial Modelling Prep.
Assistant
In January 2025, Perplexity launched the Perplexity Assistant, an AI tool designed to improve search functionality. It can perform tasks such as using a rideshare app or searching for a song, and can maintain context across actions. The assistant can use a phone's camera to attempt to answer questions about the user's surroundings or on-screen content. Perplexity has stated the assistant is still in development and may not always function as expected; certain features, such as summarizing unread emails or upcoming calendar events, require users to enable a workaround based on notifications.
Comet
In July 2025, Perplexity launched Comet, an AI browser based on Chromium. Initially, access was limited to users subscribed to the most expensive tier, but the browser was released for free download in October 2025. It integrates the Perplexity search engine.
Truth Social Chatbot
Perplexity has been contracted to produce a chatbot for Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social.
Perplexity Computer
In February 2026, Perplexity launched Perplexity Computer, a general-purpose AI agent designed to autonomously perform multi-step tasks using multiple large language models and specialized subagents. In April 2026, Perplexity introduced Personal Computer, an extension of Computer designed to operate on a user's local device.
Leadership
Aravind Srinivas is the CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AI. He previously held research positions at OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and other AI research institutions, focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence. In a March 2026 All-In episode, Srinivas said the incoming AI-related layoffs were a "glorious future" to "look forward" to, as it freed people from jobs they didn't like and gave them opportunities to pursue entrepreneurship.
Controversies
Copyright and Trademark Infringement Allegations
In June 2024, Forbes publicly criticized Perplexity for using their content. According to Forbes, Perplexity published a story largely copied from a proprietary Forbes article without mentioning or providing proper attribution to the source. This incident was part of broader allegations from media organizations, including the BBC, Dow Jones, and The New York Times, regarding unauthorized use of content and trademark issues.
Separate analyses by Wired and Cloudflare found that Perplexity uses undisclosed web crawlers with spoofed user-agent strings to scrape content from websites that prohibit or explicitly block web scraping. These practices have raised concerns about compliance with website terms of service and copyright law.