Why is AI Perplexity so coveted by tech giants?

(Dan Tri) - In just three short years since its inception, the name Perplexity has become the center of attention in the technology world.

AI assistant Perplexity, researched and developed by an American startup, stands out with its clear source citation reply feature, valued at 14 billion USD (Photo: Le Firago).

Amid the increasingly competitive AI race, Apple and Meta are said to have approached Perplexity, while Samsung is also not out of the race.

Founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, an Indian-American software engineer, Perplexity quickly rose to prominence with its ability to provide answers with specific source citations, along with direct links to the original article.

This makes it easy for users to verify information and dig deeper into the topic by suggesting consecutive questions.

Despite its ambitions to surpass ChatGPT and Google, Perplexity is still a small company with around 20 million queries per day.

However, this capability is attracting a lot of interest from competitors who are aggressively developing summary features and detailed source references.

The race for talent and technology

As Apple fell behind its rivals in the field of AI, the US tech giant considered acquiring Perplexity.

Internal discussions have taken place with the participation of Adrian Perica, head of M&A (mergers and acquisitions) and Eddy Cue, Apple's head of services.

While talks are still in their early stages and may not result in a deal, it would be a strategic move for Apple to accelerate its progress in talent and technology.

Apple is clearly lagging behind its rivals in the AI ​​race. The release of a new version of Siri powered by artificial intelligence has been delayed and is expected to launch next spring, while Google, OpenAI and Meta are constantly rolling out new features.

Furthermore, Google's deal to be the default browser on Apple devices (which brings in about $20 billion a year) is under threat from US antitrust regulators, making Apple even more in need of an alternative.

Still, all options are open. Apple is also considering partnering with Perplexity rather than acquiring it, integrating the company's search engine into Safari and Siri.

It's also a way to buy time, as long as Apple's biggest rival, Samsung, doesn't "beat" them.

The South Korean tech giant, which has been betting on AI enhancements for smartphones since last year by leveraging Google's technology, is also said to be considering a $500 million deal with Perplexity.

Regarding this information, Apple declined to comment, and Perplexity said: "We are not aware of any current or future discussions about selling Perplexity."

In this fierce AI race, Meta also "coveted" Perplexity but failed to reach an agreement.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually turned to another San Francisco startup, Scale AI, and spent $14.3 billion to buy a 49% stake.

The deal allows Meta's boss to lure Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead a new team specializing in generative AI.

Zuckerberg does not hesitate to spend money to attract talent, even Sam Altman (CEO OpenAI) revealed that some of his employees were offered a bonus of 100 million USD by Meta.

Perplexity: The Money Printing Machine

Perplexity, with about 200 employees, generated $34 million in revenue last year, thanks in part to discount programs to encourage user loyalty.

The company's growth has accelerated significantly since the beginning of the year, reaching $100 million in annual revenue in March.

To popularize its assistant, Perplexity is pushing partnerships with European telecom carriers such as Bouygues Telecom (France), Deutsche Telekom (Germany) and Telefonica (Spain).

Perplexity is increasingly used by many people (Photo: ST).

While the company is still burning through a lot of money ($65 million last year to get access to cloud servers and AI models purchased from Anthropic and OpenAI), Perplexity is now on track to make money.

Last year, 16% of subscribers paid for their service, compared to 4% for ChatGPT.

The company claims to answer 400 million questions a month and has built a bridge to e-commerce, allowing users to research and buy products right within the app.

However, Perplexity also faces many accusations of "stealing" content from media outlets.

The company has changed course, now intending to strengthen its relationship with newspaper publishers by promoting an advertising revenue sharing model and has announced several partnerships with French and European media outlets.

In the UK, however, the BBC has threatened to sue Perplexity.

The BBC claimed it had evidence Perplexity's model had been "trained on BBC content" and demanded the startup remove this content along with an "offer of financial compensation" if it wanted to avoid prosecution.

Previous similar cases came from Forbes, NYT, Dow Jones and the New York Post, prompting Perplexity to implement a revenue-sharing program with publishers.

Perplexity denied the allegations, saying the requests were based on a lack of understanding of technology and intellectual property law.

It can be seen that the war between the search engine giant and the Silicon Valley startup is still continuing.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/tai-sao-ai-perplexity-lai-khien-cac-ong-lon-cong-nghe-them-muon-20250625105332517.htm