Prologue

In today's digital age, our daily routines increasingly revolve around swiftly obtaining accurate answers to our questions.

Whether it's finding directions to a new coffee shop, gathering the latest insights for a work report, or making informed decisions, searching for answers has become essential to our lives.

Google alone processes 9 billion searches per day. When you factor in other social media platforms like TikTok and Meta, this number is likely even higher.

Amid this landscape, an innovative product is shaping the future of search with the power of AI.

Its name is Perplexity.

What is Perplexity?

<aside> 🔍 Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that's redefining the search experience and is one of the fastest-growing AI startups. The platform delivers answers to questions using advanced language models.

</aside>

Launched just a year ago on August 8, 2023, Perplexity aims to offer a more intuitive and user-centered search experience compared to traditional search engines, which often prioritize ad revenue over user satisfaction.

Instead of providing links, Perplexity offers conversational threads in response to user queries, along with curated sources, making the user experience more engaging and interactive.

Perplexity’s user-interface. Source: perplexity.ai

Who created Perplexity?

The idea began when the founders concentrated on structured search, translating natural language queries into SQL. Recognizing the potential of large language models (LLMs) to enhance user interactions with search engines, the product pivoted to a broader approach focused on unstructured search.

As public awareness of AI grew with the launch of ChatGPT, they introduced Perplexity in August 2023.

<aside> 🔍 Perplexity was created by a team of engineers: Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski.

</aside>

Aravind Srinivas serves as the CEO and brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles at OpenAI and DeepMind, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. An interesting fact about Aravind is that his inspiration for success in technology was influenced by Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, with whom he shares his birthplace city in India. Additionally, the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley sparked his ambition to make a significant impact in the tech landscape of Silicon Valley.

Denis Yarats serves as the CTO, bringing a strong background in AI research and previous experience at Meta. Andy Konwinski is another key engineer with prior experience at Quora and Databricks. Johnny Ho, the Creative Strategy Officer, rounds out the team. Their combined expertise has brought to life a robust search engine capable of handling complex queries.

The company is currently based in San Francisco and employs over 90 people.

Notable investors backing Perplexity include Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, Daniel Gross, Garry Tan, Naval Ravikant, Nat Friedman, Susan Wojcicki, Dylan Field, Stanley Druckenmiller, and others.