Perplexity Revenue Jumps 50% to $450M as It Pivots to AI Agents

The startup’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) climbed to $450 million in March, a 50% jump in just one month, according to figures obtained by the Financial Times. The spike came shortly after the company launched Computer, an AI agent designed to complete tasks, and introduced a new usage-based pricing model that charges users beyond a set number of credits.

For a company that spent the last two years positioning itself as a challenger to Google Search, the change is notable.

Perplexity built its early momentum around a chatbot-style search engine, with industry watchers framing it as one of the more credible threats to Google’s dominance. But that narrative is beginning to shift. Rather than competing directly with search, the company is moving toward tools that do more than retrieve information. Its new focus is on agents that can act on behalf of users.

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The pivot also comes at a complicated moment. Perplexity is currently facing multiple lawsuits from publishers, including The New York Times and Britannica, which accuse the company of copyright infringement and plagiarism. A separate privacy suit alleges that user data was shared with Google and Meta without consent. Perplexity has denied all the claims.