Popular AI search engine Perplexity is debuting new shopping tools that it hopes will make its service a destination for product recommendations—and maybe even actual purchases. The startup is also introducing a visual search feature in its app that lets its paid users find similar merchandise by snapping a photo of an item—much like the “Lens” products offered by Google and Pinterest.
The new tools, announced Monday, are part of a major push by Perplexity to be more of a one-stop hub for users and turn the 100 million weekly search queries it handles into a business. The effort marks yet another effort by the company to challenge search leader Google, which has been adding AI-powered shopping tools to its search results in recent months.
