Perplexity AI, an Amazon-backed startup building an AI search engine to compete with Google and OpenAI, is working with Firmly.ai, a Seattle-based tech startup that enables instant purchasing capabilities across various platforms, to help make it easier for brands to start selling goods directly through its shopping results.
Quick Backstory: Last fall, Perplexity launched a shopping assistant called “Buy with Pro” for its paid customers in the US that offers shopping recommendations as well as the ability to place an order without going to a retailer's website. The tool enables users to ask questions like “Which sunscreen with SPF 50 or higher offers moisturizing properties?” to begin their shopping journey, and then it searches the web and presents them with visual cards that have details of the product. The user can then tap on the card to view more information like reviews and key features, and subsequently purchase the item with one click, without ever visiting the website, using their saved payment and shipping info.
Perplexicty CEO Dmitry Shevelenko told Fortune that more than 150 merchants have expressed interest in selling products through its AI search platform since launching the tool in November. However in order to expand the shopping experience more rapidly to new merchants, it needed a tech partner that could help it easily connect with all of them through a single integration that provides a good checkout experience and lets retailers still control the customer data and the transaction itself — which is where Firmly.ai comes in.
With a single integration to Firmly.ai's API, Perplexity can now connect to any e-commerce merchant, who can tap into this new sales channel instantly while retaining their merchant of record status and control over transactions, and customer data.
Shevelenko said:
“When we first launched our AI experience for shopping late last year, Perplexity took a leap towards transforming the way people shop online and increased the volume of shopping-intent queries 5x. Partnering with Firmly.ai enables us to achieve our vision even faster by making it effortless for merchants to join us and easier for more consumers to natively go from answers to actions within Perplexity.”
Shevelenko added that the AI search startup is still working through the best ways to surface product recommendations without turning its users off by pushing them to buy, buy, buy!