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Perplexity announced Wednesday that it will roll out free shopping products to U.S. users next week as consumers ramp up spending for the holiday season.
“The agent part is being able to seamlessly buy right from the answer,” Dmitry Shebelenko, chief business officer at Perplexity, said in an interview with CNBC. “Most people still want to do their own research. They want it to be streamlined and simplified, so that’s a key part of this launch.”
Artificial intelligence startups have partnered with paypal Ahead of launch, users will finally be able to purchase products directly from over 5,000 merchants through Perplexity’s search engine.
Perplexity initially released a shopping service called “Buy With Pro” for paying members late last year. The company said its new free product is better at detecting shopping intent and provides more personalized results by leveraging users’ memories of previous searches.
Perplexity did not disclose whether it makes money from transactions completed through its platform.
The startup’s competitor, OpenAI, announced a similar e-commerce feature in September called Instant Checkout, which allows ChatGPT users to buy items from sellers without leaving the chatbot’s interface. OpenAI said it takes a commission from these purchases.
Etsy and Shopify was named as OpenAI’s first partner for instant checkout, and also signed a deal with PayPal late last month.
Starting next year, PayPal users will be able to purchase products, and PayPal merchants will be able to sell products through ChatGPT.
Michelle Gil, PayPal’s head of agency strategy, said the company is building infrastructure and protections as AI ushered in the “next era of commerce.”
As part of that, she said it’s important for consumers and merchants to stay connected to PayPal as they use new platforms like Perplexity.
Perplexity says that through its agent shopping product, PayPal merchants will be able to act as merchants of record and directly handle processes such as purchases, customer service and returns.
Perplexity has acted as an intermediary to complete your purchase through its “Buy With Pro” service.
Gill said PayPal’s buyer protection policy, which allows users to receive a refund if there’s a problem with their order, also applies to transactions on Perplexity.
“We’re really excited about this launch because we’re seeing this product come to fruition at a very natural time for people to shop,” Gill said in an interview.
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