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Indian-origin Aravind Srinivas who co-founded AI firm Perplexity AI shot to global fame after he challenged billionaire Elon Musk, who tried to prevent him from getting funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Srinivas, who completed his engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, founded Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine. He describes the tool as the “fastest way to get answers to any questions”.
Perplexity is the latest AI company to launch an advanced research tool, unveiling its new feature on Friday.
What is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity is a free AI conversational search engine which is designed to revolutionise the way we discover information. It also uses large language models (LLMs) to answer queries using multiple sources from the web and cites links within the text response.
The application is expanding its features for its growing user base. On Thursday, the company announced that its new Deep Research tool is now free to use. This advanced tool conducts multiple searches, analyzes hundreds of sources, and autonomously generates in-depth reports.
Perplexity AI is already known for delivering quick and accurate answers, but its new Deep Research tool takes things to the next level. Unlike traditional instant responses, this tool dedicates up to two minutes to thorough research. Equipped with advanced search and coding capabilities, it mimics human-like research by iteratively searching, analyzing documents, and refining its approach as it progresses.
Based in San Francisco, California, Perplexity was founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats and Johnny Ho.
The company's official website promises to share accessible, conversational, and verifiable answers.
Key Features of Perplexity AI
- AI-Driven Search – Uses large language models (LLMs) to answer queries conversationally.
- Web Browsing – Retrieves real-time information from the internet.
- Citations – Provides source links to ensure transparency and credibility.
- Multi-Modal Search – Supports text, images, and document-based queries.
- Personalization – Can adapt responses based on user preferences and search history.
Who is in the team of Perplexity?
The team of Perplexity is led by Srinivas, the CEO, who previously worked at OpenAI as an AI researcher. The team also includes Konwinski, who was the founding team member at Databricks; Yarats, the CTO, who used to work as an AI research scientist at Meta, and Ho, the CSO, who worked as an engineer at Quora, then as a quantitative trader on Wall Street.
Who is Aravind Srinivas?
Aravind Srinivas is an Indian origin founder of Perplexity who completed his bachelor's and masters from IIT-Madras and then PhD in Computer Science from the reputed University of California, Berkeley.
Srinivas’ interest in artificial intelligence surged and he had a four-month stint as a research intern at OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT.
Thereafter, he worked as a research intern at DeepMind, which is another AI firm, where he worked for five months followed by a similar stint at Google for a year.
Aravind returned to OpenAI in 2021 after completing his PhD to work as a Research Scientist for a year. Thereafter, he went to cofound Perplexity in August 2022.
He co-founded the firm along with Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho and says that Perplexity AI has “built the world's first generally available conversational answer engine that directly answers questions about any topic”.