How Perplexity AIs Answer Engine Challenges Google

The Founder's Journey

In the competitive arena of artificial intelligence, Perplexity Founder Aravind Srinivas is making a significant mark. With a background that includes internships at both Google and OpenAI, Srinivas was uniquely positioned to create a new kind of billion-dollar tech company. According to a report by Fortune, Srinivas, a native of Chennai, India, has long been inspired by Google and its CEO, Sundar Pichai. His ambition crystallized while interning at Google DeepMind in London after reading “In the Plex,” a book detailing Google's formative years.

His vision was further refined during his time at OpenAI, the company behind the widely recognized ChatGPT. While OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, continues to innovate with models like GPT-5, which it describes as a “Ph.D.-level expert,” Srinivas saw an opportunity to take a different path.

A Different Approach to AI

Srinivas deliberately chose not to create another large language model. He recognized the immense capital required to build such models to scale and noted that the market was already crowded with major players.

“There were already, like, five or six players building models,” Srinivas told Fortune. “So we thought, ‘Don’t be the yet-another-model company.’”

Instead, he co-founded Perplexity in 2022 with Johnny Ho, Denis Yarats, and Andy Konwinski, as noted by Technology Magazine. Launching just weeks after ChatGPT, Perplexity introduced a fundamentally different concept.

Perplexity The Answer Engine

While early versions of ChatGPT relied solely on their training data and couldn't access the live web—sometimes leading to inaccuracies or "hallucinations"—Perplexity was designed as an AI-powered answer engine. It summarizes findings directly from web pages and provides footnotes to cite its sources, offering a layer of transparency and trust. This model also contrasted with Google's traditional format of providing a list of blue links, leaving the user to find the answer themselves.

Google has since adapted, introducing features like “AI Overviews” powered by its Gemini 2.0 model and an “AI Mode” that more closely resembles Perplexity's direct-answer format. Srinivas believes his company can still offer a superior experience.

“In a world where you can easily create fake content with AI, accurate answers and trustworthy sources become even more essential,” he stated.

An $18B Valuation and Growing Influence

Perplexity's performance underscores its potential. The platform is logging nearly 1 billion queries monthly, achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue by March, and has reached a staggering $18 billion valuation. It has attracted investment from industry titans, including Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, Google's chief scientist Jeff Dean, Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, and the chip-making giant Nvidia.