Perplexity keeps breaking records, clocking 780 million searches in May—a 20% jump from April—as CEO Aravind Srinivas told Bloomberg Tech Summit attendees that “people are tired of legacy browsers like Chrome.”
If Perplexity can keep this momentum, Srinivas believes it could hit 1 billion weekly queries soon, thanks to everything happening in its search bar, new-tab page and sidecar interface that drives extra engagement.
The startup, backed by Nvidia (NVDA, Financial) and Jeff Bezos, is also gearing up to launch Comet within three to five weeks. Comet is Perplexity’s new “agentic” search service that does things for you—like record your virtual meetings, transcribe them and let you search what was said. Srinivas admitted building those features has been harder than anticipated, but he says reliability and speed have improved, and “everyone’s working super hard to get the browser out in your hands.”
Perplexity just added a way to buy products directly in chat via PayPal (PYPL, Financial) or Venmo, hinting at future revenue beyond ads. That matters because Google (GOOG, Financial) still owns about 90% of search traffic—and even though Bing sits in second with around 4%, Perplexity’s off-the-charts growth and $14 billion valuation (up from $9 billion in December) show investors are betting that a browser-native, AI-first experience could steal user time and queries.
Investors should keep an eye on whether Perplexity can sustain these gains once Comet goes live; this summer’s traffic pick-up and early feedback on Comet will be key gauges.
