Perplexity AI is actively working to establish itself as a major search engine. The company is already getting huge support from its users, investors, and collaborators. According to a report by MoneyControl, Perplexity AI gained over 1 million users in India, which helps approach the further expansion.
In January 2025, Arvind Srinivas, the CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AI, announced the expansion of the company, seeking to use local talent to drive growth and engage with strategic partners. There is a thin border between search engines and generative AI tools, which is going to disappear very soon, and Perplexity AI is approaching them.
According to the Analytics India Mag report, Srinivas recently met with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to discuss the adoption of artificial intelligence in India, which highlights the interest in fostering AI innovations by the Indian prime minister.
Perplexity AI: User Base And Market Share
Indian users become the main sources to gain a significant user base for Perplexity AI. According to a reliable source, Perplexity AI gains approximately 22.16% global traffic; interestingly, 46.9% of users are from either India or Indonesia. Here are the stats of Perplexity AI users’ distribution as of now—
| Rank | Country | % of Users | All Devices | Desktop | Mobile |
| 1 | Indonesia | 24.78% | 12.98 million | 7.47% | 92.53% |
| 2 | India | 22.16% | 11.61 million | 17.79% | 82.21% |
| 3 | US | 16.22% | 8.5 million | 59.69% | 40.31% |
| 4 | Philippines | 3.3% | 1.73 million | 24.1% | 75.9% |
| 5 | Mexico | 2.65% | 1.39 million | 36.06% | 63.94% |
These stats show how good traffic turned out for Indonesia and India to get a perfect expansion for both of the countries. However, in the ChatBot market share, the Perplexity AI holds an 8.26% share as of April 2025, challenging stats for some popular AI’s like ChatGPT, Gemini AI, etc.
Innovations in Search Engine Race
Perplexity distinguishes itself by giving a search engine-like interface and real-time data with certain citations that approach the Perplexity users’ trust and transparency. Interestingly, many of our users started treating it like a search engine because in one place it gives the real-time result with the citation, which helps users to fact-check via source links.
According to a report by Coherent Market Insights, the AI search engine is expected to be valued at USD 43.63 billion and get more than USD 108.88 billion by 2032, which suggests how fast the AI company is shifting to the search engine race.
Challenges in Growth
Google is playing a monopoly role in search engine technology. With the help of synced products like Android, Google Cloud, Drive, etc., it is very challenging to reach near Google’s stats. However, artificial intelligence is changing and shaping the future to the next level.
Google still maintains 87.57% market share in the search engine sector, which is very challenging to approach due to Google’s dominance. Apart from them, ChatGPT, Gemini AI, Bing AI, and many more are still running fast in the search engine race. In this term, perplexity may face hard challenges.
Investors and Collaborators
Perplexity AI is valued at $14 million until April 2025. The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, raised $73.6 million and valued the company at approximately $520 million in the company’s Series B funding round in January 2024. Also, they continued the funding and raised $500 million in December 2024. Here is the details of investors and collaborators for Perplexity Platform—
- Jeff Bezos: In the company’s B Series funding in January 2024, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, raised $73.6 million and $500 million in December 2024.
- Tobi Lütke: The CEO Of shopify, an eCommerce CMS platform, raised $62.7 million during company’s B1 round in April 2024
- Daniel Gross: The co-founder of the venture firm NFDG and Apple AI lead, Daniel Gross also invested in Perplexity AI during the Series B1 funding round in April 2024. (Source: Wikipedia)
- Dylan Field: The co-founder and CEO of Figma, joined Perplexity AI’s B1 funding round in April 2024
- Elad Gil: Former Twitter VP, also invested in Perplexity A during the company’s Series B round in January 2024. (Source: Tech Startup)
- Apart from these, There are so many investors invested in the company, including asuding Stanley Druckenmiller (renowned hedge fund manager), Naval Ravikant (angel investor and entrepreneur), Nat Friedman (CEO of Github), Andrej Karpathy (former director of AI at Tesla), Garry Tan (president of Y Combinator), etc.
Perplexity AI’s Valuations
- Series B (January 2024): Perplexity AI raised over $73.6 million in participation from Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and others. After this investment, companies’ total valuations grew to $520 million.
- Series B1 (April 2024): With the contributions of Daniel Gross, Stanley Druckenmiller, Tobi Lütke, and other notable investors, total investment grossed $62.7 million.
- Series C (December 2024): According to the source, the founder of Amazon raised over $500 million and continued the investment, which helps companies valued to $9 billion
- Series D (Projected for 2025): According to a Reuters report, Perplexity AI is looking for a $1 billion investment, eyeing a company valuation gross of $14 billion.
FAQs
What is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity AI is an AI-powered tool that was founded in 2022 and got millions of users in a few years. On the platform, you can search the real-time data, information, etc. The AI tools answer with the citation to manage trust and transparency. Also, it behaving like a search engine is the biggest threat to Google and similar search engines.
Who are the most famous celebrities who invested in Perplexity AI?
Here are some of the famous celebrity who invested in the Perplexity AI—
Jeff Bezos (Founder of Amazon), Tobi Lütke (CEO of Shopify), Stanley Druckenmiller (Legendary hedge fund manager), Naval Ravikant (Entrepreneur and angel ), and Andrej Karpathy (AI expert and former Tesla director)
Which are the most famous companies that invested in the Perplexity AI?
Apart from the famous celebrities, there are few companies that show interest and invest in Perplexity AI: NVIDIA, Accel, NEA (New Enterprise Associates), IVP (Institutional Venture Partners), etc.
Who is the founder of Perplexity AI?
According to Wikipedia reports, Perplexity AI was founded by them. Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, Among them, Aravind Srinivas is the CEO of Perplexity AI.
Is Perplexity a search engine?
The perplexity AI is launched at the generative AI tools but is actively working to reshape itself as the next search engine.
Conclusion
In the race of AI-powered search engines, Perplexity AI is actively working and starting to face the challenges and dominance of Google and similar platforms. However, India’s PM, Narendra Modi, supports the India-owned search engine approaching them, which may help to counter Google’s dominance.
India & Indonesia have the largest number of internet users combined, and Perplexity AI is gaining more than 46.9% of users from both of the countries, suggesting it is running fast in the race. However, perplexity is looking for the investment and pointing itself to the next processes.
