Perplexity Handled 780 mn queries in May, CEO Aravind Srinivas Says

Perplexity AI handled 780 million queries in May, CEO Aravind Srinivas revealed at Bloomberg’s Tech Summit, noting over 20% month-on-month growth.

“If this trend continues, we could hit a billion queries a week within a year,” Srinivas said.

From just 3,000 queries on its launch day in 2022 to 30 million daily today, the growth has been rapid.

A major driver of future expansion could be Perplexity’s upcoming Comet browser.

Srinivas explained that browser integration would dramatically boost user engagement and retention.

“Every search bar entry, every tab—those are all more queries,” he said, adding that Comet aims to attract users frustrated with traditional browsers like Chrome.

Srinivas also emphasised that Comet is not just another browser but a “cognitive operating system.”

Unlike standard AI tools that return answers, Comet is designed to complete tasks and entire browsing sessions with a single prompt.

The company plans to merge client and server computing seamlessly for optimal performance.

Speaking on the TBPN podcast, Srinivas earlier said that collecting data beyond Perplexity’s app is key to offering more relevant advertising and content recommendations.

“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser—we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you. Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related… what you’re buying, which hotels or restaurants you visit, what you spend time browsing—tells us so much more,” Srinivas said.

The goal is to improve Perplexity’s user profiles and fuel ad relevancy through its “Discover” feed. Srinivas suggested that users would accept the tracking if it leads to more meaningful content and ads.