Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity AI, delivered pointed criticisms of Google’s artificial intelligence offerings during a recent appearance at the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco. His remarks represent one of the strongest rebukes the startup has made against its competitor.
At the event, Srinivas described Google’s AI assistant as a “terrible product” and accused the tech giant of perpetually unveiling similar AI features each year, but failing to deliver them effectively to users.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity has quickly established itself as a leading startup focused on harnessing generative AI to transform essential internet services. The company is reportedly in advanced talks to secure new funding that could value it at around $14 billion (approximately Rs. 1,20,036 crore), according to Bloomberg News.
Additionally, Perplexity is negotiating a significant agreement to integrate its technology into devices produced by Samsung Electronics, a development that could diminish the South Korean firm’s dependence on Google’s AI software.
Srinivas expressed concerns about the challenges Google poses in forming partnerships with smartphone manufacturers. He noted, “Google has given us a very hard time,” though he did not provide specific examples of the difficulties encountered. “They definitely don’t want us to succeed,” he asserted.
Despite being significantly smaller than Google, Srinivas is optimistic about Perplexity’s future, claiming it has the potential to be valued in the trillions if it succeeds in reshaping how users interact with the internet, which he refers to as “the accuracy layer of AI.”
“Every day, trillions of dollars of decisions are made across retail, finance, markets, exchanges, everything,” he stated. “If we can influence a big chunk of that, then that will automatically mean we can be worth trillions in market cap one day.”
As a point of reference, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, currently boasts a market valuation exceeding $2 trillion (around Rs. 1,71,46,810 crore).
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(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
