AI search startup adds veterans of Google, Bing as advisers

AI search startup adds veterans of Google, Bing as advisers

Perplexity AI, a startup using artificial intelligence to build a search engine to rival Alphabet Inc.’s Google, is creating an advisory board with several high-profile tech veterans to help the company grow in an increasingly competitive space.

The new advisors will include former Uber Technologies Inc. executive Emil Michael, Android co-founder and Google advisor Rich Miner, and Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Microsoft Corp.’s Bing Search, the company said.

“We've been fortunate to scale up so much in such a short period of time. The next step for us is to really think hard about strategy, both in terms of search, how to build our own index and how to scale it up to even more users,” Aravind Srinivas, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview on Bloomberg Technology.

Michael will advise the company on growth; Miner on developing new consumer interfaces, including on mobile; and Parakhin on shaping its search engine, among other topics, Perplexity said in a press release.

Perplexity raised $63 million at a $1 billion valuation in April, Bloomberg reported — doubling its value from three months prior. Perplexity has distinguished its chatbot in an crowded market, and has earned fans like Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang, who has said he uses the product “almost every day.”

At the same time that it’s growing in popularity, the 55-person startup is also seeing increased competition from larger companies. On Tuesday, Google said that it’s revamping its core search product to include AI summaries in responses to search queries, similar to what Perplexity does. OpenAI has also been working on developing an AI search product, Bloomberg previously reported.

Srinivas told Bloomberg TV he’s confident that Perplexity’s focus on having a standalone question-and-answer style app will differentiate his product. “I think users like simple, minimal, clean products,” Srinivas said, “so we are pretty confident in our own direction.”