Perplexity is teaming up with the financial technology giant for the new chat-based shopping experience, PayPal announced on Wednesday, May 14. The service is expected to be available in the US in the summer.
Shoppers can make purchases within chat prompts on Perplexity Pro.
"This partnership unlocks new possibilities, where conversations now drive commerce," said PayPal president and CEO Alex Chriss. "We're making it easy and secure to shop right in the chat when inspiration strikes. It's a powerful step in making conversational commerce a reality."
Perplexity's conversations will allow users to move from searches to purchasing in a single chat thread. Customers can make purchases simply by asking, with the shopping experience powered by live web data and AI.
The system handles payments, shipping, tracking, and invoicing in the background using PayPal's account linking and tokenized wallet technology.
New tools like passkeys at checkout aim to eliminate passwords and speed up the process.
"Perplexity wants to have accurate, trustworthy answers wherever people are making decisions," said Perplexity CEO and co-founder Aravind Srinivas. "PayPal is a natural partner because we share a vision for how important trust is in the age of AI."
This isn't Perplexity's first entrance into online shopping.
In 2024, Perplexity launched a shopping feature for US users, CNBC reported. The new integration now enables full transactions within an AI conversation, which rival platforms like ChatGPT haven't introduced.
Other major payment companies are also adding AI-based features. Visa launched Intelligent Commerce, while Mastercard debuted Agent Pay with support from Microsoft's AI platforms.
The Perplexity partnership is PayPal's second step into the AI world. The company also released a developer toolkit to help embed its payment capabilities into AI-powered shopping experiences.
The AI push by financial companies comes as tech researchers raise concerns about how developers are prioritizing commercialization over safety. More than a dozen AI professionals told CNBC that pressure has grown to deliver new products, often at the expense of security and research.
James White, the chief technology officer at CalypsoAI, says he's worried tech giants are cutting corners. CalypsoAI is a cybersecurity firm that has audited many major AI models from Google, Meta, OpenAI, and other companies.
A lack of oversight during the development and testing of AI features could leave users' personal information vulnerable to hackers.
"The models are getting better, but they're also more likely to be good at bad stuff," White said. "It's easier to trick them to do bad stuff."
Founded in 2022 by former employees of several tech firms, Perplexity says it answers more than 150 million questions each week.
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