ElevenLabs just teamed up with Mistral, Perplexity, Hugging Face, and over a dozen other platforms to launch the AI Engineer Pack. Builders get $50 or more in credits across each participating tool, taking the financial sting out of testing multiple paid APIs when prototyping new projects.
Perplexity just expanded its publisher revenue-sharing program with 15 new media partners, including the Los Angeles Times and The Independent. Participating outlets will share in ad revenue and receive free Enterprise Pro access for their entire newsrooms. As copyright friction grows, Perplexity is betting that giving publishers a cut keeps content flowing.
Perplexity just partnered with Quartr to integrate its API, giving users worldwide access to live earnings call transcripts paired with AI summaries. Institutional investors used to hoard these analytical tools, but now anyone can track corporate earnings in real time.
Perplexity just added a "Buy with Pro" button that lets US paid subscribers check out directly inside its AI search engine with free shipping. It also rolled out a Google Lens-style "Snap to Shop" visual search tool and AI product cards summarizing reviews and features.
Perplexity just started experimenting with ads in the U.S., formatting them as "sponsored follow-up questions" alongside AI search results. Answers are still generated by the AI without advertiser input. Perplexity says advertising is essential because subscriptions alone cannot sustain its revenue-sharing deals with publishers.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas just offered to step in and keep The New York Times running after its tech guild went on strike ahead of the election. The offer quickly sparked backlash on X with critics calling him a scab, prompting Srinivas to clarify that he offered infrastructure help for high-traffic days rather than replacing workers with AI.
Perplexity just launched an Election Information Hub to help voters navigate key issues, polling logistics, and live race results. The platform taps into data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works' API, offering source-backed summaries on candidates and ballot measures. It is a bold test of whether AI search can handle high-stakes civic info without hallucinating.
Perplexity is quietly testing an in-platform shopping feature called "Pro Shop" that lets users research and buy products directly without leaving the site. Eligible items feature a "Buy with Pro" button with promised free shipping, turning the AI search engine into a full checkout loop.
Google just announced it is adding sponsored ads directly inside its AI Overviews search summaries on mobile in the U.S., alongside links to relevant web pages. The company is also rolling out AI-organized search pages powered by custom Gemini models. It shows Google is racing to monetize generative answers before users switch to ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Perplexity just rolled out a new reasoning focus mode in beta for Pro subscribers, tapping into OpenAI's o1-mini. It is built specifically for math, puzzles, and coding tasks, though it lacks web search integration for now and runs with strict rate limits.
Perplexity is gearing up to run ads on its search app in the fourth quarter, pitching advertisers on premium CPM rates topping $50. Brands will be able to sponsor related follow-up questions and buy display units next to generated answers, marking the AI startup's biggest push into commercial monetization.
a16z just released the third edition of its Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps, revealing that nearly 30% of companies on the list are newcomers. Video and music generators saw massive surges, with Suno jumping from #36 to #5, while Perplexity and Claude cemented top-five spots on web. ByteDance quietly dominated with six apps across web and mobile rankings.
Perplexity just started rolling out a built-in code interpreter with live plot rendering. The tool can install third-party Python libraries on the fly and display charts directly in answers—like pulling stock data with yfinance. It is currently rolling out gradually to users.
Perplexity just launched a revenue-sharing program for publishers, signing up partners like TIME, Der Spiegel, and Fortune. When media content is cited in sponsored follow-up queries, publishers will earn a revenue share, plus free API access to build custom on-site answer engines and a year of Enterprise Pro for their entire staff.
Perplexity is facing fierce backlash from Forbes and Wired, with both outlets accusing the AI search startup of covertly ignoring robots.txt rules to scrape content and republishing original scoops verbatim. Perplexity defends its actions as fair use tied to direct user queries, but the tension between web scrapers and original creators is escalating quickly.
Perplexity just upgraded Pro Search to handle complex questions using multi-step reasoning. The search assistant can now break down queries, trigger follow-up web searches automatically, and run code or tap Wolfram|Alpha for advanced math and data analysis. Free accounts get limited access, while Pro subscribers get higher daily limits.
AI companies are quietly bypassing the decades-old robots.txt protocol to scrape publisher sites without permission, according to licensing startup TollBit. The finding follows Forbes recently calling out Perplexity for lifting its investigative work. With web scrapers ignoring traditional courtesy standards, publishers' primary defense against AI crawlers is essentially breaking down.
Perplexity just rolled out card-based direct answers for basic factual queries like weather, local time, currency conversion, and simple math. CEO Aravind Srinivas noted these lookups are now much faster, though they conspicuously drop source links. It’s a direct play against Google, aiming to stop users from hopping back to traditional search for routine everyday facts.
HubSpot just teamed up with AI creators Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lands to launch The Next Wave, a weekly podcast breaking down practical AI strategies in 40 minutes or less. The debut episode features Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas discussing the future of search and open-source models. It is built to serve as an on-demand Chief AI Officer for growing companies.
Perplexity is finalizing a new funding round that will push the AI search startup to a $1 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. That nearly doubles its $520 million valuation from just two months ago, alongside topping $10 million in annual revenue. Investors are clearly eager to back a challenger to Google's search empire.
