The hunt for the next evolution of the search engine has been ongoing for over a decade, but nothing has been able to even nudge Google’s dominance. The latest attempt and by far the most conceivable alternative is generative AI chatbots, which take all of the relevant links and data from the web and simplify it to a single answer.
Perplexity is one of these chatbots aiming to be the next Google. Launched in August 2022, Perplexity was one of the first to use up-to-date data from the web, allowing it to answer news queries and act more as a search engine than a productivity tool.
This immediately brought Perplexity some bad press, as it was accused by many news outlets of stealing content and not attributing it to the correct source. It has since added source credit and partnered with news organisations to split the revenue when an answer uses their data.
Perplexity generates revenue through ads and a premium service, which costs $20 per month. The premium subscription uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude 3 language models to enable more complex search queries, PDF analysis and other upgrades.
Is Perplexity the next Google? It is far too early to tell. The app has around 15 million active users, although how sticky these users are is another question. Google has around three billion users that access it regularly, and is a pervasive technology that everyone knows. On top of that, Google has also launched its own AI overviews, which summarise queries in one answer.
We have collected data and statistics on Perplexity. Read on below to find out more. Want to dig deeper? Check out our AI app report.
Perplexity Key Statistics
- Perplexity AI has a revenue run rate of $50 million and should make around $25 million revenue for 2024
- Perplexity has 15 million active users on its website and app
- The Perplexity app has been downloaded 8.9 million times since launch
- Perplexity AI has received $915 million in funding and was reportedly last valued at just shy of $9 billion
AI App Report 2024
Want to learn more about the AI app industry? In our AI App report, we cover financials, forecasts, usage, downloads, demographics and benchmarking data.
Perplexity Overview
| Title 1 | Title 2 |
|---|---|
| Launch date | 1 August 2022 |
| HQ | San Francisco, California |
| People | Aravind Srinivas (co-founder, CEO), Denis Yarats (co-founder, CTO), Johnny Ho (co-founder CSO) |
| Business type | Private |
| Industry | AI |
Perplexity Revenue
Perplexity generates revenue from its premium version at $20 per month, alongside ads. It made almost no revenue in 2023, but has seen revenue growth shoot up in the latter half of 2024. It reported a revenue run rate of $50 million in October 2024.
Perplexity Users
Perplexity had 15 million active users in its most recent update on usage, up from 10 million three months before.
Perplexity users 2023 to 2024 (mm)
| Date | Users (mm) |
|---|---|
| Q3 2023 | 4 |
| Q4 2023 | 10 |
| Q1 2024 | 15 |
Source: AI App Report, Company data
Perplexity Downloads
Perplexity had 2.8 million downloads in the third quarter of 2024, an improvement on the previous quarter.
Perplexity users 2023 to 2024 (mm)
| Date | Downloads (mm) |
|---|---|
| Q4 2023 | 1 |
| Q1 2024 | 2.8 |
| Q2 2024 | 2.3 |
| Q3 2024 | 2.8 |
Sources: Appfigures, AppMagic
Perplexity Funding
Perplexity has raised $915 million from investors so far, with the last funding round being the largest.
Perplexity AI funding 2022 to 2024
| Date | Funding | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024 | $500m | IVP, Wayra |
| Jun 2024 | $250m | |
| Apr 2024 | $62.7m | Daniel Gross |
| Jan 2024 | $73.6m | IVP |
| Mar 2023 | $25.6m | New Enterprise Associates |
| Sep 2022 | $3.1m | Elad Gil |
Source: Crunchbase
AI App Users
There are over 300 million people using AI apps, primarily for chatbot or image editing purposes.
AI app users 2021 to 2024 (mm)
Want to learn more about AI apps? Check out the AI App Report
Perplexity FAQ
How many queries has Perplexity answered?
Perplexity’s chatbot has answered 230 million queries since it launched
How much has Perplexity AI raised?
Perplexity has raised over $900 million so far
How many people work at Perplexity AI?
Perplexity has 55 full-time employees
What artificial intelligence models does Perplexity use?
Perplexity uses a range of language models, including GPT-4 and Claude 3
How many publishers have partnered with Perplexity?
Over 300 publishers have partnered with Perplexity and receive a share of ad revenue each time they are sourced
What was Perplexity last valued at?
Perplexity was reportedly valued at just under $9 billion in its latest funding round (The Information)
