Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, says that the AI-powered search engine now handles 100 million questions every week
That’s about 400 million monthly queries, up from 250 million searches in July.
As Perplexity’s popularity grows quickly, the company shows e-commerce features, such as letting people who pay for its Perplexity Pro service buy things with just one click. It is also said that Perplexity is planning a new way to show ads. The Financial Times talks with companies like Nike and Marriott about sponsored questions.
One problem for Perplexity is that it has to go to court with distributors. The NY Post and Dow Jones of News Corp. call this a “content kleptocracy”. They have sued Perplexity for it. Many other news sites are worried that Perplexity copies their content too closely. Last week, the New York Times sent the company a “cease” letter.
It is said that Perplexity is in talks to raise about $500 million at a value of $8 billion.