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Perplexity served 780 million search queries in May, which are rising by 20% month-over-month, CEO Aravind Srinivas said at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco. He’s now eyeing 1 billion queries per week by the end of the year.
The surge in queries reflects Perplexity’s effort to muscle its way into the AI search race, where Google still dominates, though its grip appears to be loosening while OpenAI is circling the runway. Last August, Perplexity was processing north of 230 million queries globallyeach month, ADWEEK previously reported.
Srinivas positioned Perplexity as a search engine built for accuracy, an antidote to the hallucination-prone answers plaguing many AI rivals.
Meanwhile, Google’s AI Overviews can’t seem to remember what year it is.
Srinivas said a “good product” has helped draw in deep-pocketed backers. The company is reportedly in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $18 billion, according to Reuters.
Perplexity’s growth comes as it begins layering in revenue plays. The company launched its AI-powered ecommerce shopping experience last year and partnered with brands like Whole Foods and TurboTax to run ads on the platform. It’s also gearing up to launch Comet, its own browser, leaning into how results are ranked and monetized.
Perplexity is also betting big on becoming a native assistant for Android devices. In January, it began developing its own Android assistant, said Srinivas, which led to a partnership with Motorola. Srinivas hinted more deals could follow as conversations with other hardware makers continue.
“Google Assistant is a terrible experience, and they know it themselves,” he said, adding that Google has given Perplexity an “extremely hard time” when it comes to striking distribution deals with OEMs.
Perplexity was also among the companies that testified in Google’s landmark antitrust search trial earlier this year. At the time, its chief business officer said that Google’s exclusive distribution deals with phone makers and carriers had effectively boxed Perplexity out of similar partnerships
Google did not respond to media request.
Source: https://www.adweek.com/media/perplexity-monthly-growth-search-queries-20-percent/
The surge in queries reflects Perplexity’s effort to muscle its way into the AI search race, where Google still dominates, though its grip appears to be loosening while OpenAI is circling the runway. Last August, Perplexity was processing north of 230 million queries globallyeach month, ADWEEK previously reported.
Srinivas positioned Perplexity as a search engine built for accuracy, an antidote to the hallucination-prone answers plaguing many AI rivals.
Meanwhile, Google’s AI Overviews can’t seem to remember what year it is.
Srinivas said a “good product” has helped draw in deep-pocketed backers. The company is reportedly in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $18 billion, according to Reuters.
Perplexity’s growth comes as it begins layering in revenue plays. The company launched its AI-powered ecommerce shopping experience last year and partnered with brands like Whole Foods and TurboTax to run ads on the platform. It’s also gearing up to launch Comet, its own browser, leaning into how results are ranked and monetized.
Perplexity is also betting big on becoming a native assistant for Android devices. In January, it began developing its own Android assistant, said Srinivas, which led to a partnership with Motorola. Srinivas hinted more deals could follow as conversations with other hardware makers continue.
“Google Assistant is a terrible experience, and they know it themselves,” he said, adding that Google has given Perplexity an “extremely hard time” when it comes to striking distribution deals with OEMs.
Perplexity was also among the companies that testified in Google’s landmark antitrust search trial earlier this year. At the time, its chief business officer said that Google’s exclusive distribution deals with phone makers and carriers had effectively boxed Perplexity out of similar partnerships
Google did not respond to media request.
Source: https://www.adweek.com/media/perplexity-monthly-growth-search-queries-20-percent/