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 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, Llama 3 and an Experimental Perplexity Model.^[3][4][1] As of early 2024, it has about 10 million monthly users.^[5]

Perplexity was founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, engineers with backgrounds in back-end systems, AI and machine learning. Yarats, the CTO, was an AI research scientist at Meta, while Srinivas, the CEO, worked at OpenAI as an AI researcher. Ho, the Chief Strategy Officer, worked as an engineer at Quora, then as a quantitative trader on Wall Street, and Konwinski was among the founding team at Databricks.^[6]

As of 2024, Perplexity has raised $165 million in funding, valuing the company at over $1 billion.^[1] Investors include Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Databricks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Susan Wojcicki, Jeff Dean, Yann LeCun, Andrej Karpathy, Nat Friedman, and Garry Tan.^[5][7][1]

Perplexity's main product is its search engine, which relies on natural language processing.^[5] It utilises the context of the user queries to provide a personalised search result. Perplexity summarises the search results and produces a text with inline citations.^[5] It prioritises newer sources to avoid outdated information, and allows users to ask follow-up questions that are interpreted in the same context.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. The 'Focus' mode feature allows users to fine tune search and streamline sources.^[8]

Perplexity's paid variant, the "Pro" mode, asks the user clarifying questions to refine queries. It enables users to upload and analyse local files, including images, alongside generating images using AI. Additionally, it provides access to an API.^[5][9] Perplexity launched a new enterprise version of its product in April 2024.^[1]