Perplexity turns tweets into talking videos

Ask Perplexity just added a free AI video generator directly inside X, and users immediately broke it with wild requests.

Here are the details:

Starting June 19, users on X can tweet a prompt, tag @AskPerplexity, and receive a short AI-crafted video in response.

Each clip runs about eight seconds long and comes with synchronized audio and dialogue, a major step up from the silent clips usually generated in social media feeds.

Naturally, the internet went wild. Prompts ranged from dancing samosa parties to satirical takes on global politicians.

Within hours, the demand was so overwhelming that the bot posted: "I’ve read through your video request DMs. Some of y’all need help."

Perplexity confirmed users would see delays due to the massive surge in traffic, while reassuring everyone that safeguards are in place to block abusive content.

This follows Perplexity's April rollout of a free AI research assistant on WhatsApp, where users can already ask questions and generate images.

Why it matters

For everyday users, this eliminates the friction of dedicated video platforms. You do not need to learn complex prompt frameworks or pay a steep subscription just to test an idea; you simply post a tweet. That said, at eight seconds with heavy wait times, it is currently a viral toy rather than a serious creative tool.

Strategically, we think Perplexity is pulling a brilliant growth hack reminiscent of Midjourney's early Discord days. Generating video is notoriously expensive, but embedding it into social timelines turns every user query into public marketing.

The big question is sustainability. Offering real-time multimodal generation with audio for free burns serious compute, and hosting political satire bots on public platforms is an inevitable moderation minefield.