Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence search start-up, has increased its monthly revenues and usage seven-fold since the start of the year, after closing a new $250mn round of funding. The AI-powered search engine answered roughly 250mn questions in the last month, compared with 500mn queries for the whole of 2023, Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business officer, told the Financial Times. The new figures underscore Perplexity’s position as one of the fastest-growing generative AI applications to emerge since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched to huge acclaim in November 2022, despite controversy over the start-up’s data-gathering techniques. San Francisco-based Perplexity, which was founded by former Google intern Aravind Srinivas just three months before ChatGPT launched, uses AI software to answer questions, using information pulled in “real time” from the web, including news websites. Perplexity started the year with $5mn in annualised revenues — a projection of full-year revenues based on extrapolating the most recent month’s sales — and is now making more than $35mn on the same basis, according to a company insider. Now, the start-up is pivoting its business model from subscriptions to advertising, bringing it into closer competition with Google, which dominates the $300bn search ads industry. Its growth comes as Google steps up its integration of AI features into its core search product and OpenAI launches SearchGPT, a prototype AI search tool available to roughly 10,000 testers. “At the end of the day the smaller player in the space has two advantages: velocity and focus,” Shevelenko said. “Our users and team only think about one thing when it comes to Perplexity: a place you get your questions answered. Competition sharpens our focus even more.” To fuel its fight against larger rivals, Perplexity recently closed a new $250mn investment from investors including SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, said people familiar with the deal, tripling its valuation from $1bn in April to $3bn. Bloomberg previously reported on the funding negotiations.

Full report : Perplexity’s popular artificial intelligence search engine boosts usage and sales despite controversy over its data-gathering techniques.