My cousin also submitted a bid to merge with TikTok, not sure why that’s not being reported on?!?
I don't know if it would come with the deal, but Bytedance web crawler is known to be the one with top number of requests per day among AI crawlers (src: https://blog.cloudflare.com/declaring-your-aindependence-blo... ) I guess one of Perplexity challenges is to have their own web index and of course that starts with having a powerful crawler. Also having a powerful crawler is useful for capturing tokens to train models. If that technology comes with the deal, it makes perfect sense for Perplexity to acquire them.
Funnily enough the Cloudflare blog identifies Perplexity engaging in dodgy practices to avoid robots.txt denylists:
> Sadly, we’ve observed bot operators attempt to appear as though they are a real browser by using a spoofed user agent. We’ve monitored this activity over time, and we’re proud to say that our global machine learning model has always recognized this activity as a bot, even when operators lie about their user agent.
Clearly not working too well.
Perplexity sounds desperate. They got early traction and have money but they seem to be lost.
Less desperate, more "there is a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it but let's keep going and see what happens."
They would be buying one of the largest amounts of user generated data in the world. Sounds good to train on.
AI needs user data, user generated content and behavior patterns.
Google has platforms Google also purchased Reddit user content. Meta had platforms and user content.
Well yeah all these AI companies are desperate, it's a highly competitive space with billions of dollars being thrown around to try and win it.
It's a shame because Perplexity is BY FAR the most useful AI tool out there. This shows they have clearly no vision and won't be able to keep afloat.
I would have agreed up until a few weeks ago. ChatGPT search is getting better, but kind of superficial so I still preferred Perplexity. But the new Gemini Deep Research is waaay better than Perplexity at deeper Internet searches and I imagine only will continue to get better.
Perplexity is useful as a thin layer of product over a base model. As Sam Altman said, eventually all such startups will be steamrolled by companies that own the models.
Perplexity are also flagrant copyright violators
Deepseek's search is pretty much on par with perplexity already
Please explain why do you think they're the most useful by far? Just curious of such a bold statement in a highly competitive space.
Or due to their power, they've already secretly been taken over by the US Gov't. That's not really a "big conspiracy theory" at this point. I was mocked by the left for years for saying that the Gov't was involved in Facebook censorship. Turns out I was right. The biggest battle our Gov't has to wage is the battle for hearts and minds, and the control of information, and so they're trying to get in as deeply rooted as possible with every big AI company.
Deeply unserious (like the rest of the TikTok saga) and TikTok even at a depressed price is worth far more than perplexity.
they just acquired read.cv: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/17/perplexity-acquires-read-c....
Perplexity does everything to get some PR, no matter how stupid and unrealistic. This seems very desperate and raises some at least orange flags.
Perplexity is a pretty awesome and much needed app, but Aravind Srinivas has many posts on X reek of a desperate need to succeed - scruples aside. To me that signals an inevitable enshitification.
After the non-exodus from Reddit and Twitter enshittification is a given, in time. It's been proven not to sink a business.
A new low for Perplexity AI and will do anything for attention.
What a circus
The great lengths people go to for PR. :)
Obvious PR move, they don't have near enough money.
Kmart bought Sears (back when Sears was far from worthless, and Kmart was fresh off a chapter 11) with nothing but its own overvalued stock, which was based on an inflated valuation of its real estate from a couple of very favorable sales. Point being, don’t rule out financial shenanigans if people who know what they’re doing are involved. (Note: I know nothing about who runs Perplexity)
They’re suggesting a merger, not a sale.
I'm not sure why people keep expecting ByteDance to actually sell TikTok. The US isn't even that big of a market for them in global terms. India was a bigger market for them, and it was way bigger than the US. They're just going to shut down in US and focus on BRICS countries instead.
Not all users are the same for Ad Revenue.
Disappointing that any real site is promoting this marketing stunt
Google has YouTube. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Aravind Srinivas is very ambitious but also smart of course.
TikTok has got to be an absolute gold mine for AI video training because of its short duration format and the amount of videos.
And AI videos seem primed to absolutely explode in popularity and consumption. I don't have access to Veo 2 yet, but Kling 1.6 is pretty amazing, even if it's prompt understanding is a bit random.
I wonder what the TikTok terms of use say about this.
I am probably just a hopeless conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if this just comes down to the NSA getting full access to the code and operations for auditing purposes or if they decide they have their own agenda.
I know that propaganda is a real thing, not a made up conspiracy theory, and companies like TikTok and Perplexity could be key to spreading/controlling it.
In particular, it's difficult to run a war if almost everyone in your country is against it. Which might happen pretty quickly if the wrong video spreads.
Maybe the solution to avoiding WWIII is for the (evil?) military industrial complex bosses in the west and China to get together and realize that they can more effectively surveil and control their populations if they work together. And then they can sell their weapons for purposes of persecuting smaller nations or groups that get out of line. And use the combined power of the monopoly information distribution companies in both countries to propagandize the world.
There you go, I just solved world peace. You're welcome.
I see the demand for being able to produce content with 0 effort, but where is the demand to consume it coming from? I thought people watch tiktoks to interact with people, the desire to engage with nonhuman personalities must be extremely niche, but could be I’m in a millennial/luddite bubble.
> I am probably just a hopeless conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if this just comes down to the NSA getting full access to the code and operations for auditing purposes or if they decide they have their own agenda.
ByteDance already offered the US this and a seat on the board with the ability to veto any hire they deem suspicious. The real problem is that Meta and Google lost their market share to Tiktok and they are not happy about it.
Perplexity is going to be a nice headstone in the AI graveyard once the bubble pops
I disagree.
The same way ByteDance has strong relationship with public and private partners in China, it's the same with Perplexity among Indian organizations based on personal experience.
Worst case, they pull an Ola
Perplexity at this point like that single uncle shooting his shot with anything breathing.
And why is that? P is the only AI company that I am constantly using. It is as important to me as google.
To me this just shows that Perplexity is definitely being controlled by some other force other than AI developers, and different from what they publicly would admit to. Perhaps the US Gov't is involved? ...because I don't think any other investors would be able to hide their true funding source and motives quite like the Gov't.
i see what you did there