Perplexity AI wants to 'rebuild' TikTok, here's how

Perplexity AI has unveiled its ambitious plan to rebuild TikTok in America, focusing on creating a more useful, transparent, and trustworthy platform, according to a recent blog post. The company aims to address concerns surrounding the popular video-sharing app by overhauling its core functionalities and infrastructure.

A key aspect of Perplexity's vision involves making TikTok's algorithm more transparent. The company intends to open-source the "For You" feed algorithm, a move designed to eliminate the risks of user manipulation and foster greater trust among users. This level of transparency would allow users and researchers to understand how content is recommended, a significant departure from the current opaque system, said the company. “Our promise is to turn TikTok into the most neutral and trusted platform in the world. To achieve this, we commit not only to developing a new algorithm but also to making the TikTok For You feed open source,” said Perplexity AI.

Furthermore, Perplexity plans to significantly upgrade TikTok's underlying AI infrastructure. Leveraging Nvidia Dynamo, the company aims to scale recommender models and dramatically improve the speed of content delivery and inference. This upgrade promises a smoother and more efficient user experience.

In a bid to enhance the trustworthiness of information on the platform, Perplexity intends to integrate its existing citation and community note features into TikTok. This would allow users to easily cross-reference information presented in videos, adding a layer of verification and combating the spread of misinformation. “All answers on Perplexity include citations, which we believe is fundamental to creating a trusted information ecosystem. As a first step, Perplexity would immediately extend this capability to TikTok videos, making it easy for users to cross-reference information in realtime as they watch videos,” said the company.