AI search engine
Perplexity |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
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| Genre | Search engine |
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| Founded | August 2022 |
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| Founder | Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Aravind Srinivas |
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| Headquarters | , USA |
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Key people | Aravind Srinivas (CEO) |
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Number of employees | ~45[1] (2024) |
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| Website | |
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Perplexity AI is an AI-chatbot-powered research and conversational search engine that answers queries using natural language predictive text.[2][3] Launched in 2022, Perplexity generates answers using the sources from the web and cites links within the text response.[4] Perplexity works on a freemium model; the free product uses its Perplexity model based on OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model combined with the company's standalone Large language model (LLM) that incorporates natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, while the paid version Perplexity Pro has access to GPT-4, Claude 3, Mistral Large, and an Experimental Perplexity Model.[3][5]
History
Perplexity was founded in August 2022 by Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Aravind Srinivas.[6] Srinivas previously worked at OpenAI and now serves as Perplexity's CEO.[7]
As of 2024, Perplexity has raised $100 million in funding, valuing the company at $520 million.[3][8][9] Additional investors include Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Databricks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Susan Wojcicki, Jeff Dean, Yann LeCun, Andrej Karpathy and others.[7][10][9] It has garnered about 10 million monthly users.[11]
Functionality
Perplexity's main product is its search engine, which relies on natural language processing.[7] It interprets the context of the user queries to provide a personalized search result. Perplexity summarizes the search results and gives a text with inline citations.[7] It prioritizes newer sources to avoid outdated information, and allows users to ask follow-up questions that are interpreted in the same context.
Perplexity uses a freemium model and provides basic search functionalities and all search modes for free. It also contains a 'Focus' mode feature, which allows users to fine tune search and streamline sources. Major focus modes include:[12]
- All: Searches the entire internet for answers.
- Academic: Focuses on scholarly articles and academic publications.
- Writing: Assists with text and code generation without internet access.
- Wolfram Alpha: Performs computational queries, including mathematical calculations.
- YouTube: Searches within YouTube, providing timestamps and in-platform video viewing.
- Reddit: Explores community discussions and opinions on Reddit.
Perplexity's paid variant, the "Pro" mode, asks the user clarifying questions to refine queries. It enables users to upload and analyze local files, including images, alongside generating images using AI. Additionally, it provides access to an API.[7][13]
