Perplexity now lets you buy stuff directly in the AI search engine
Perplexity searches are now shoppable with a Perplexity Pro subscription.
Today, the AI-driven search engine unveiled "Buy with Pro," a shopping assistant within Perplexity searches that gives you a one-click shopping experience. If you're researching products, or some kind of shopping-related query, Perplexity includes products in its responses that can be bought on the page — as long as your payment info is saved in the app.
Search results include relevant product info to inform your purchases by comparing prices and features. To sweeten the deal, Perplexity is also offering free shipping.
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Buy with Pro is available with a Perplexity Pro subscription, which costs $20 a month. But notably, Perplexity doesn't earn a commission from purchases like Google Shopping — for now. "We have no concrete plans to introduce affiliate revenue," said Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick. "But it's also not off the table." At least for now, it sounds like a way to entice Perplexity users to upgrade to Pro.
Perplexity has gained attention as competitor to Google and OpenAI by offering a combination of AI-generated and real-time responses from the web. It's like a hybrid of Google Gemini and Google's AI overviews or OpenAI's new ChatGPT Search. However, like other generative AI chatbots trained on publicly available content, it has faced accusations of violating copyright and trademark laws. While Perplexity battles infringement lawsuits, it is charging forward with monetizing AI-powered search results.
It's not an AI agent, as in, it doesn't perform multi-step tasks — a feature that's shaping up to be a big theme in the coming year. But shoppable search results could be a stepping stone to this autonomous feature that companies like Google and OpenAI are expected to launch soon.
In conjunction with the AI shopping assistant, Perplexity also announced a Merchant Program for retailers to share product specs with the app. In turn, participating merchants will get an increased chance of product recommendations and purchasing data about their products. Perplexity isn't sharing specific user browsing habits with merchants, Platnick confirmed to Mashable.
Topics Artificial Intelligence
Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.
