The Perplexity app is available for download in the Apple and Google stores. It is free to download and use.
I get a lot of newsletters on AI, and a recent article included information about an AI app available in the Apple and Google store called “Perplexity.” I downloaded it and found its ease of use, real-time fact-based answers, and footnotes with live links to the source to be the best I have seen. For the most part, I have stopped using Google and use perplexity for almost anything I want to know. Perplexity is especially good at answering technical questions on state-of-the-art technology, including the medical field. But you can ask any question you would ask Google and get a direct answer rather than a list of hundreds of possible answers and websites as you do with Google.
Perplexity AI utilizes various large language models (LLMs) to answer questions through its app. The LLMs used include GPT-3, GPT-4, and Claude-2. Additionally, Perplexity AI has introduced two new online LLMs: pplx-7b-online and pplx-70b-online. These LLMs access real-time web information and provide accurate answers to complex queries.
Perplexity AI has a team of 1-10 employees, at least nine open positions on its website, and an estimated annual revenue of $1 million to $3 million; it has been experiencing significant growth, with 10 million monthly visits and 2 million unique visitors in February 2023. The company is located in San Francisco, CA. Perplexity has secured new funding led by venture capital firm IVP, according to an exclusive report dated October 24, 2023, from the media company Tech StartUps. Although the specific amount and terms of the deal remain undisclosed, insiders reveal that this investment puts the one-year-old startup at a valuation of approximately $500 million.
Perplexity aims to leverage artificial intelligence to challenge Google’s dominance in online search. While Perplexity’s web traffic remains a small fraction of Google’s, it has been steadily gaining momentum, with its website witnessing nearly 13 million visits in February, marking a substantial increase compared to the previous month.
Perplexity AI was founded in August 2022 by Denis Yarats, Aravind Srinivas, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski.
Aravind Srinivas is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity. He is a former research scientist at OpenAI and completed his PhD in computer science at UC Berkeley. According to his LinkedIn profile, he started off in machine learning and is now leading Perplexity on a mission to build the world’s most knowledge-centric company. He has also been featured on the Machine Learning Street Talk podcast, where he discussed Perplexity’s unique UI/UX, answer vs. search engines, and the future of the product
Denis Yarats is a co-founder and the CTO of Perplexity. He has a background in machine learning, having worked as a research scientist at Facebook AI and as a machine learning engineer at Quora. According to an interview on the No Priors podcast, Denis is incredibly skilled at engineering and recruiting and played a significant role in the rapid operation of Perplexity. He also recruited another co-founder, Johnny Ho, known for being the world’s number one at competitive programming.
Johnny Ho is a co-founder and the Chief Strategy Officer at Perplexity AI. Based in New York, NY, US, he brings experience from previous roles at Tower. Johnny’s background is in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Andy Konwinski is a co-founder of Perplexity AI, based in Berkeley, CA, US. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science and brings experience from previous roles at the University of California. Andy is also skilled in Apache, C++, and Python.
Credit: Perplexity and Tech StartUps