TLDR: Jeff Bezos backs AI-powered startup working to rival Google

Jeff Bezos has backed a startup valued at $520 million working to rival Google’s web search dominance by using artificial intelligence to change the way people look for information online.

Key Points:

• Jeff Bezos and other tech executives invested $73.6 million in Perplexity, an AI-powered startup.
• Perplexity aims to rival Google’s search engine dominance by using AI to provide direct text responses to questions.
• Perplexity has raised $100 million to date, valuing the startup at $520 million.

Dubbed Perplexity, its prized product is a forum to “ask anything,” which its San Francisco-based team of less than 40 calls an “answer engine.” Perplexity works as a chatbot-style search engine that responds to queries using OpenAI’s GPT technology.

Jeff Bezos, along with other tech executives and venture capitalists, collectively invested $73.6 million in Perplexity’s latest round of Series B funding. The funding raised the startup’s total investments to $100 million and valued the company at $520 million.

Perplexity’s novel approach to search, which provides direct text responses to questions instead of website links, caught the attention of Bezos and other investors. Its more powerful search engine, which uses OpenAI’s most advanced GPT-4 technology, can be accessed for $20 a month.

Perplexity has seen rapid growth, with 10 million people using its website and mobile app monthly, and 53 million visits in November alone. Despite its ambitious goal to rival Google’s dominance in online search, Perplexity also received investments from Google executives, including former YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki and Senior Vice President Jeff Dean.

While Perplexity has raised substantial funding, Google still reigns supreme, boasting a market cap of $1.74 trillion and roughly 90% market share in search engine usage. Scaling and expanding to compete with Google’s wide range of queries and languages will be a challenge for the startup, especially as it has yet to be listed on a stock exchange.