Perplexity is another AI company after our hearts. This company owns an AI-powered search engine that’s been gaining popularity, and it started showing ads. The company doesn’t only want to improve your search experience, but it also wants to improve your shopping experience. Perplexity can now buy products for you.
Right now, AI companies are trying to venture into automation. We’ve seen several companies work on different AI tools that can perform tasks on the behalf of the user. This includes companies like Motorola training LAMs (Large Action Models) that can perform actions on your phone like ordering your coffee for you. Anthropic and OpenAI are also working on tools that can take control of your computer and perform simple tasks.
This is the next stage in AI development. At first, companies were focused on making AI think. Now, they want it to act, and there’s no telling what sort of effect that will have.
Perplexity can now buy products for you
Before you get excited about this, it’s important to note that this feature is only for Pro members. A Perplexity Pro subscription costs $20/month, which comes with a handful of pro features.
The latest perk is this new “Buy like a pro” feature. If you search for something on the search engine, you’ll see a Buy with Pro button if it’s supported. If you want to purchase that item, all you have to do is tap that button. Once you do that, Perplexity will take care of everything else for you. It will purchase the product for you using your saved payment and shipping information. It’s a one-tap-shopping feature that will be great for all the impulse shoppers out there.
Of course, one-tap shopping has the classic issue: “Crap! I didn’t mean to tap on that!” Hopefully, there’s a window that will allow you to cancel the order.
At this point, we don’t know how many merchants support this feature, as you won’t be able to use it for every site. If you try to buy from an unsupported site, Perplexity will take you to that merchant’s site.
As an added bonus, users will get free shipping if they use Buy with Pro. That’s a great incentive. The Verge reached out to Perplexity to ask if it was getting any money in return for this, and the spokesperson Sara Platnick said “As of now, we do not”. From that wording, it seems that there could eventually be some monetary exchange in the future.
