As the artificial intelligence (AI) market continues to grow, Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, is making its mark in e-commerce. The company plans to expand the use of AI for shopping by adding shopping functionality to its platform.

As reported by Reuters, Perplexity now offers purchase recommendations within its platform. However, for now, the feature is only available to customers based in the United States.

Perplexity adds shopping functionality

On November 18, the AI-powered search engine launched a new shopping feature for its paying users in the United States. So how exactly does it work? The company, backed by AI chipmaker Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will give users product sheets showing relevant items in response to shopping-related questions. Each of these cards will show you product details. For example, you can get the price, seller information, a brief description, and the pros and cons of the item. Just search for a product and everything will be there in one search.

The new “shopping” feature will be powered by Shopify. This will help users get relevant and recent information about the searched products. You can get a visual of the products you are looking for. Notably, Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce platform that ships products worldwide. The new rollout focused on online shopping also includes “Snap to Shop.” It is a visual search tool that displays products based on photos of an item taken by users.

Additionally, you can also store their address and credit card details for easy payment. The company also claimed that the feature could calculate taxes based on your address. This helps you pay with just one click. Plus, the pro membership lets you get free shipping on products purchased using its “one-click checkout” system.

The way forward

In addition to this, the platform will also offer a merchant program to allow retailers to share product information with the company. With this new feature, the company aims to compete with Amazon and Google. Google and Amazon have long dominated the search platform and e-commerce industries, respectively. So, with the new feature, Perplexity aims to acquire a portion of the “shopping search results”.

However, some suggest that AI recommendations could be biased. This is because most AI search results are based on popular search results. In response to this concern, “At the moment, the search engine’s recommendations are unbiased as there are no sponsored slots,” Perplexity explained.

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