Perplexity AI has introduced in-search shopping through a new integration with Firmly, aiming to let users make purchases directly from AI-powered search results. The feature eliminates the need to navigate between product pages, instead embedding real-time listings and checkout options into the search flow.
The feature marks Perplexity’s first major move into consumer commerce. It allows merchants of any size to appear directly in answers using Firmly’s infrastructure, offering a streamlined way to present product data and accept transactions natively within the Perplexity interface.
How conversational shopping is taking shape
Instead of relying on referral links or ad-driven carousels, Perplexity uses real-time citations and an opt-in partnership model to present live product listings alongside user queries.
The company has launched a checkout feature called “Buy with Pro”—initially available to U.S.-based paid users. The tool enables one-click purchases inside the search interface using saved shipping and payment information.
This functionality is powered by Firmly’s Agentic Commerce Platform, which allows merchants to integrate once and distribute product data across multiple AI channels.
“With a single integration to firmly.ai’s API, Perplexity can now connect to any e-commerce merchant. Merchants can tap into this new sales channel instantly while retaining their merchant of record (MOR) status, ensuring full control over transactions, customer relationships, and data. Merchants can access millions of potential customers while protecting the value of their brand,” the company said in a press release.
This approach diverges from traditional ad-driven revenue models, such as those used by Google or Amazon. It eliminates ads entirely in the current experience and allows Perplexity to generate income directly from subscriptions and transaction infrastructure, reducing dependency on sponsored placement or affiliate marketing.
As usage grows, Perplexity has observed a fivefold increase in shopping-related queries, including interest in wellness products, household goods, and meal planning.
According to the company, users are completing purchases inside search rather than jumping between sites, turning to Perplexity for shopping-related queries ranging from health and wellness products to meal planning and travel.
Firmly’s infrastructure is also designed to give retailers full control over pricing, fulfillment, and user data—a sharp contrast to traditional affiliate programs where much of the customer relationship is handled by intermediary platforms.
Building a broader AI ecosystem
The shopping rollout follows a series of platform expansions by Perplexity. In January, it introduced the Sonar API, giving developers access to real-time, citation-backed AI search capabilities. Sonar Pro, the higher-tier version, supports multi-step reasoning, large context windows, and expanded citations for more complex queries.
Organizations such as Zoom and Copy.ai have integrated the API into their products. Copy.ai reported that Sonar helped its team save up to eight hours per week by speeding up sales research and content generation. Doximity, a network for medical professionals, uses Sonar to power real-time medical answers with verified sources.
That same month, Perplexity also launched a multimodal assistant for Android, which supports voice commands, visual search, and screen context analysis. Users can ask it to identify objects with the phone’s camera, summarize information on-screen, or complete simple tasks like booking a ride or finding a restaurant—all through one app.
Then in February, Perplexity teased its own upcoming Comet browser. Designed around AI-first workflows, the browser is expected to integrate search and task automation directly into the interface. CEO Aravind Srinivas has said it aims to fix core browsing functions that “Chrome hasn’t shipped for ages.”
The company’s plans don’t stop there. According to a Reuters report, Perplexity is in talks to raise between $500 million and $1 billion at a valuation of $18 billion—more than double its last reported figure. That funding, if finalized, would support scaling efforts across infrastructure, partnerships, and user growth.
Facing off with Google’s AI shopping model
Perplexity’s approach comes as tech giants continue to expand their AI-commerce experiments. In October 2024, Google rolled out personalized shopping feeds tied to user search and YouTube history, complete with AI-generated summaries and AR features for clothing previews.
This March, Google began expanding AI Overviews and testing an AI Mode for search, which replaces traditional blue links with generative answers. While these tools offer convenience, they’ve also sparked pushback. Publishers argue Google’s summarization methods rely on scraping their content without compensation—resulting in traffic drops and loss of visibility.
Beyond shopping: TikTok, transparency, and future ambitions
The company’s broader ambitions go well beyond commerce. On March 22, 2025, Perplexity revealed a proposal to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations. The plan includes building a new recommendation engine, storing user data in American data centers, and open-sourcing the algorithm to ensure transparency and neutrality.
“Perplexity is singularly positioned to rebuild the TikTok algorithm without creating a monopoly,” the company stated in its bid, which also promises third-party oversight and integration with Perplexity’s citation-based RAG system.
While the outcome of that bid remains uncertain, it reinforces the company’s public stance: to provide information and content delivery systems that are transparent, ad-free, and user-centered.
This same ethos is now embedded in its approach to shopping, suggesting a broader vision that touches not just on AI search, but on how people interact with the web, platforms, and digital commerce more broadly.
Perplexity is still early in this transition. But by embedding e-commerce directly into answers—rather than surrounding them with ads or redirect links—it’s betting that the future of search won’t just be about finding information. It will be about what happens immediately after.
