Perplexity AI Raises $73.6M in Series B Funding

Although there exist debates on where artificial intelligence stands and should stand in the industries of our world, with most opposition coming from the creative industry, there is no denying that AI chatbot usage has increased quite significantly over a couple of years since its notable rise.

According to AI development organization Master of Code, increasing demand for round-the-clock customer service coupled with the constant need to reduce operational costs have made AI a rising preference for consumers and businesses alike. AI chatbot usage faced a 92% increase since 2019, with top use cases being question answering, detailed explanations, and complaint resolution.

Among the many utilizing AI in their products or services is Perplexity, a tech company running a conversational AI search engine since 2022 that has recently raised $73.6M in Series B funding, the company is currently valued at $520M.

Competing Information at our Fingertips

In our modern age, information is very easily accessible almost everywhere we go. What comes with this gargantuan pile of knowledge, however, are inaccuracies and misinformation that must be filtered through, requiring individuals to stay astute and perceptive.

Google and Microsoft are among some of the colossal players in the search engine sector that have operated for decades at our disposal. Deeming Google as a legacy that may soon become a thing of the past, however, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas views Perplexity and AI as something vital for the future, helpful for the next generations to come to avoid misinformation.

While it does not seem like Google or Microsoft’s Bing would completely disappear from the face of the Earth anytime soon, especially due to the fact that they still present informational stability, the rise of AI seems to show that there are more reliable sources of knowledge available for us now.

By harnessing large language models, Perplexity believes that it could take Google and Microsoft on. The company’s AI conversational search engine has natural language processing abilities, allowing it to comprehend questions and queries just as a human would. This way, the engine can not only give out plenty of information but also more precise ones, setting itself apart from the more “traditional” search engines.

Instead of letting users sort through the abundant amount of content that exists in the internet themselves, Perplexity utilizes OpenAI and Llama to do the job for them, sifting through information and instantly responding to queries with only the most relevant pieces of information.

Features and Funding

To create an improved and more transparent AI-native experience for its users, all results from Perplexity are coupled with sources and citations. This allows users to fear the risk of misinformation and AI hallucinations a little less since they can easily recheck every piece of information more efficiently, accelerating their research process. I asked Perplexity regarding the history of film and received a concise answer along with several sources for me to corroborate the facts.

Following its series B Funding, which included participation from NEA, Databricks, NVIDIA, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Kindred Ventures, Perplexity has raised a total of $100M to further improve its products, aiming to someday soon dominate the search engine market.

Though focusing on the more general search engine world at the moment, which is available for free, Perplexity has also built up Perplexity Pro, an AI-powered research assistant copilot used to access research papers, analyze data, and generate code, geared towards academics and professionals. Available at $20 a month, Pro is equipped with API credits and allows users to switch to an AI model of their choice for better results.

Tech visionaries such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, former X VP Lad Gil, GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, and Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch also backed Perplexity’s most recent funding round.

Meme & AI-Generated Picture

Job Posting

• Perplexity AI - Frontend Engineer, AI Tooling - San Francisco, California (In-Office/Hybrid)

• Perplexity AI - Lead Product Designer, Mobile - San Francisco, California (In-Office/Hybrid)

• Perplexity AI - Senior Android Software Engineer - San Francisco, California (In-Office/Hybrid)

• Perplexity AI - Software Engineer, Full Stack - San Francisco, California (In-Office/Hybrid)

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