Media reports that artificial intelligence search company Perplexity AI plans to raise investment funds for about $500 million as part of a new round of financing.

According to information released by journalists, the market capitalization of the mentioned firm after the specified round would rise to around $8 billion. The media, citing unnamed insiders, claim that the company mentioned the specified figure during negotiations with investors. At the same time, the journalists separately noted that the conditions of the likely funding round may change. This means adjusting the mentioned indicator. It is also worth noting that in this case, the media released preliminary information that was not officially confirmed. Perplexity AI declined to comment on reports of a likely funding round.

Also, the media, citing insiders, published information according to which the company’s annualized revenue is about $50 million. Moreover, in this case, it was separately noted that in March the corresponding figure was fixed at $10 million.

Besides, the media, citing insiders, reported that the potential funding round would be the fourth in a year. If the corresponding probable intention of the company is successfully implemented, the market capitalization of Perplexity AI will double. In January, the company was valued at $520 million. In the summer, the corresponding figure was fixed at $3 billion.

It’s worth mentioning that at the beginning of the current month, it became known that OpenAI had almost doubled its valuation. This figure has reached $157 billion. Also, at that time, information was made public that OpenAI raised investment funds for $6.6 billion. It is worth noting that this year after employees sold shares, the valuation of the company, which is the developer of the world’s most popular chatbot based on artificial intelligence called ChatGPT, amounted to $86 billion.

Last month, the machine intelligence startup Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, was able to raise $1 billion in investments as part of a funding round. NFDG, a venture capital firm run by Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, alongside tech investment heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and SV Angel participated in this fundraiser.

In June, the media reported that Perplexity AI has been making waves in the search engine market. To a large extent, this positive dynamic is related to the company’s functional approach, which provides that search tools provide users with instant answers to questions. Also, in this case, data sources and citations are indicated separately.

Perplexity AI, based in San Francisco, uses various large language models to summarize and generate information, including OpenAI and Llama open source from Meta. Last year, the company’s functional system processed more than 500 million queries. In this case, it is noteworthy that the mentioned result was achieved with minimal marketing expenditures.

In August, the media released information according to which Perplexity AI is preparing to monetize its platform through advertising. Potentially, the implementation of this solution can reshape the competition in the digital advertising market.

Perplexity AI has also faced some kind of controversy. Some major media outlets have accused the company of plagiarism. In this context, attention was drawn to the issues of content ownership and fair use in the era of artificial intelligence. Perplexity AI has adjusted its citation practices and implemented a revenue-sharing model for publishers.

It is worth noting that during the period of active development of artificial intelligence, the issue of cybersecurity has become more relevant. Machine intelligence, like most other technologies, can be used both within the framework of positive scenarios that benefit consumers and for criminal purposes. For example, scammers who carry out activities in the virtual space apply artificial intelligence to deceive their victims. It is worth noting that the use of AI has made their activities more sophisticated. To counteract the corresponding threat in cyberspace, personal consumer awareness is important. For example, a query in an Internet search engine, such as how to know if my camera is hacked, will allow anyone to get information about signs of unauthorized access to the device. Also, some cyber criminals use artificial intelligence to generate deepfakes. Such information materials, which have seemingly convincing signs of reliability, may also be intended to achieve such a goal as gaining access to other people’s financial resources. Another scenario for using deepfakes is the manipulation of public consciousness. Also, these information materials can be used to promote certain narratives in the media space that distort the circumstances and facts of objective reality. At the same time, efforts are being made to counter the corresponding threat. For example, last year, the startup Reality Defender raised $15 million to detect deepfakes.