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New York Times

Can This A.I.-Powered Search Engine Replace Google? It Has for Me.

A Start-up Called Perplexity Shows What’s Possible for a Search Engine Built from Scratch with Artificial Intelligence

For my entire adult life, whenever I’ve had a question about the world or needed to track down something online, I’ve gone to Google for answers. But recently, I’ve been stepping out on Google with a new, A.I.-powered search engine. (No, not Bing, which is dead to me after it tried to break up my marriage last year.)

It’s called Perplexity. The year-old search engine, whose founders previously worked in A.I. research at OpenAI and Meta, has quickly become one of the most buzzed-about products in the tech world. Tech insiders rave about it on social media, and investors like Jeff Bezos — who was also an early investor in Google — have showered it with cash. The company recently announced that it had raised $74 million in a funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners, which valued the company at $520 million.