Perplexity’s revenue surges 50% as it shifts focus to AI agents

Perplexity has recorded a 50 percent revenue jump in a single month, driven by its expansion into AI agents. Cristina Criddle reports for the Financial Times that the company’s estimated annual recurring revenue (ARR) climbed to over $450 million in March, following the launch of a new agent tool and a switch to usage-based pricing.

The San Francisco-based start-up built its reputation as an AI-powered search engine, once considered a serious challenger to Google. It is now shifting emphasis toward AI agents, software tools that complete tasks on a user’s behalf, such as sending emails, summarising content, and online shopping.

In February, Perplexity launched a product called Computer, which introduced a credit-based usage model alongside existing subscriptions. Consumer plans range from $20 to $200 per month. The company reports more than 100 million monthly active users, including tens of thousands of enterprise clients.

Despite the strong growth, Perplexity still trails larger rivals. Anthropic reported an ARR of $19 billion in late February, while OpenAI generated $20 billion last year.

The company is currently loss-making, as it pays third-party providers including OpenAI and Anthropic to access their models. Perplexity was last valued at $20 billion in September 2024. Its backers include Nvidia, SoftBank, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.