Perplexity and Other GenAI Models Poised to Redefine SEO

Perplexity, the AI search engine start-up, is making waves in the tech industry with its latest funding round. The company is raising $62.7M, doubling its total valuation to over $1B, bringing its fundraising totals to $165M. This rapid succession of investment rounds indicates investors are strongly backing the start-up in its bid to compete with Google. With more people turning to Generative AI models for Search, brands have a new way to connect with customers. This will have a significant impact on SEO and SEM in the near future. Brands need to prepare now to meet the searchers of tomorrow.

Perplexity’s Background, Customers, and User Stats

Founded just two years ago, Perplexity quickly gained traction by using AI to deliver responses to user inquiries.

The company uses LLMs to search the web and offer summaries of the information it finds, complete with citations, to answer users’ search queries.

Perplexity’s impressive customer base spans across various sectors, including finance, legal, sports, advertising, software, and hardware. Some of its notable customers include Databricks, Stripe, Zoom, NVIDIA, and HP. These companies are using Perplexity to research ticket sales trends and craft compelling sales pitches, and to understanding market landscapes.

The start-up’s popularity is evident in its user statistics. Perplexity AI has:

• 10 million active monthly users.
• More than 500 million search queries in 2023 alone.
• Over 50 million visits per month, giving it a global rank of 1,712.
• Interestingly, around 1 in 4 Perplexity users are based in Indonesia.

Generative AI Could Finally Burst Google’s Bubble

Perplexity’s growth has upended SEO fears and revealed a crack in Google’s dominance. A recent study by BrightEdge focused on nine industries: healthcare, education, B2B tech, restaurants, travel, entertainment, insurance, finance, and retail e-commerce.

The study found Perplexity’s referral traffic grew 40% month-over-month since January, and 60% of its citations match the top 10 organic Google results.

This is the first time Google’s market share is challenged in terms of actual referral traffic to brand sites. While Google remains the undisputed search leader, Perplexity’s momentum is a sign that generative AI is threatening its market dominance.

SEM and PPC Comes to Generative AI

Perplexity’s recent announcement that it will soon display branded ads on its search results has raised some eyebrows. The news appears to contradict the company’s claim that search should be “free from the influence of advertising-driven models.”

However, Perplexity’s Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko maintains that advertising was always part of their plan. With this in mind, marketers should start adding PPC in Perplexity to their SEM budgets.

Brands Should Start Training AI Models on Messaging

If you’ve attended my Generative AI training, you know to protect your company’s IP with anonymized content shared with AI models.

However, as Perplexity and other AI models are used for Search, marketers need to optimize for AI search engines.

In my AI Trainings and Transformation strategies, I recommend companies and agencies:

1. Identify areas where they have the best expertise from a topic perspective, optimize content for conversations rather than just keywords.
2. Ensure sites have structured information for AI search engines.

In fact, I suggest you take a SERPS approach to optimizing AI. Begin with the questions and queries most likely to return your brand messaging in the outputs. As you train AI models on your brand’s messaging, you must reinforce it many times to get it to “stick.” You should frequently test the outputs with search queries to ensure your brand’s message is included in outputs.

While Perplexity’s growth is impressive, the company is not necessarily a better marketing tool than Google, yet. However, its success does underscore the need for businesses to be prepared for a world where multiple AI search engines co-exist, each with its own areas of expertise.

It is undeniable that Generative AI models are poised to disrupt the search engine landscape and challenge Google’s dominance. As the AI revolution in search unfolds, businesses and marketers must stay vigilant and adaptable to stay ahead of the curve.

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Read more: Perplexity and Other GenAI Models Poised to Redefine SEO