Perplexity Buy with Pro launched today, the company’s AI-powered eCommerce feature, signaling a significant transformation in the eCommerce landscape and a pivotal shift in how consumers discover and purchase products online. The launch of Perplexity’s eCommerce capabilities represents more than just another entry into the eCommerce space — it’s the beginning of a reimagining of the entire shopping experience through the lens of artificial intelligence.
What makes this development particularly intriguing is Perplexity’s approach to bridging the gap between product research and purchasing. Unlike traditional eCommerce platforms that rely on keyword-based searches or basic filtering systems, Perplexity Buy with Pro, is a more intuitive, conversation-based shopping experience that can handle complex, multi-faceted queries. For instance, users can ask naturally phrased questions like “stuff to buy when I want to throw a graduation party” or “what would some cool ideas for Halloween costumes be” and receive contextually relevant recommendations.
Perplexity Buy with Pro
The introduction of Perplexity Buy with Pro, currently available to U.S. Perplexity Pro subscribers, will no doubt shake up the eCommerce ecosystem largely dominated by TikTok, Google, Facebook, and Amazon and should keep things interesting for the near term. Perplexity’s Buy with Pro functionality, powered by an ML model that detects user intent. Whether triggered by what someone is researching or by a direct query, it allows customers to buy directly from the Perplexity app. Designed to streamline the purchasing process, offering one-click checkout capabilities along with free shipping, Buy with Pro removes traditional friction points in the online shopping journey. What’s particularly noteworthy is the hybrid approach Perplexity has taken, combining AI capabilities with human oversight to ensure transaction accuracy and reliability. Perplexity Pro is priced at $20 a month or $200 annually.
The discovery process is attractive, as Perplexity claims it will provide product recommendations and details, as well as answers to shopping questions that are unbiased and unsponsored by brands (today, anyway), tailored to individual users’ searches powered by Perplexity’s AI.
Perplexity’s Snap to Shop
The Perplexity eCommerce platform’s “Snap to Shop” feature is clearly designed to compete against Google Lens and Amazon’s visual search capabilities, both of which are already used by customers the world over, so, while including that functionality isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it is quickly becoming something customers expect, so I’m not surprised to see this included in Perplexity’s eCommerce capabilities.
Visual search capabilities allow users to photograph items they’re interested in and instantly receive information about where to purchase similar products online. This visual search functionality addresses a long-standing pain point in eCommerce: the challenge of finding products when you don’t know their exact names or descriptions.
Perplexity’s Partnership with Shopify
Perplexity’s partnership with Shopify is a strategic move that significantly expands the Perplexity product ecosystem. By integrating with Shopify’s vast merchant network and product catalog, and implementing Shop Pay checkout capabilities, Perplexity positions itself to compete with established eCommerce giants while offering a distinctly different value proposition — one centered on AI-driven discovery and seamless transactions.
The company’s merchant program is particularly noteworthy for its potential to reshape retailer-platform relationships. By offering free API access and custom dashboards with valuable shopping trend insights, Perplexity is creating an ecosystem that benefits both consumers and merchants. This approach could potentially set new standards for how eCommerce platforms collaborate with retailers.
Note that Perplexity is working as an agent here, completing transactions for users from merchants.
Perplexity Merchant Program Serves Up Enticing Benefits
Perplexity is encouraging retailers to join its Merchant Program with some juicy benefits. Perplexity invites retailers to share product specs and information on available products and has also made it free to join the merchant program. The benefits here are myriad, including payment integrations in the one-click Buy with Pro checkout experience, as well as the ability to be mentioned as a “recommended product.” Perplexity is also providing free API access to merchants allowing them to build their own “Perplexity-powered” search experiences that can be refined to include only that merchant’s products, along with a dashboard that allows them to see shopping and search trends and adjust their strategies as they go.
What’s Ahead for Perplexity
Looking ahead, Perplexity’s expansion plans for Perplexity Buy with Pro include international markets and suggest this is just the beginning of the company’s commerce ambitions. The real question will be how effectively Perplexity can scale its hybrid AI-human approach to transaction processing and whether other players in the space will follow suit with similar innovations.
Perplexity Buy with Pro represents more than just a new shopping feature — it signals a broader shift in how AI companies are evolving from information providers to enablers of direct action and commerce. As this trend continues to develop, we may well see a fundamental restructuring of the eCommerce landscape, with AI-driven platforms taking center stage in how consumers discover and purchase products online.
And let’s get real: while eCommerce might be attractive for Perplexity, Buy with Pro is not simply about making money from eCommerce; it’s all about attracting eyeballs and search queries and gaining velocity (and users) as Perplexity moves to take on Google search. That, my friends, is where the money is.
See relevant coverage here:
Unpacking the State of eCommerce: Replatforming and Migration Trends for 2024
Corcentric CEO Matt Clark on Removing Friction from B2B Commerce and the Evolution of the CFO Role
Perplexity AI’s value to soar to $9B as it finalizes new $500M funding round
