Over the last few years, Aravind Srinivas led Perplexity has established itself as one of the key AI startups trying to take on the dominance of Google in not just search but even in the browser space. However, in a recent informal survey conducted in San Francisco with more than 300 attendees, the dominant opinion was that Perplexity is the most likely billion dollar AI startup which could fall, Business Insider reported.
Perplexity spokesman Jesse Dwyer, while responding to the Cerebral Valley survey to Business Insider, said, "Geeze, it sounds more like the judgmental valley conference."
What's worse is that Perplexity was followed by OpenAI in the second spot. Notably, OpenAI's ChatGPT has lost some momentum to Google's Gemini and other rivals in the last few months, but the chatbot continues to remain the overwhelming leader in the AI race in terms of market share.
Similar to Perplexity, OpenAI has also been rolling out products that go beyond its usual niche including an AI powered browser called ChatGPT Atlas, a social media app called Sora and most recently a Group Chat feature for ChatGPT.
While it was once predicted that the new age startups could take away Google's lunch money, it seems like the mood of a few investors is swinging in the other direction.
Fear over AI bubble:
In the last few months, there has been a lot of debate over whether the AI industry is in a bubble, with startups raising billions of dollars without having clear notions about profitability. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have both previously admitted that it is very possible that the AI industry might be in a bubble, while still noting the positive impact of the new technology.
In a recent podcast, Altman was also asked about the ballooning valuation of OpenAI.
"How can a company with $13 billion in revenues make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments?" investor Brad Gerstner asked the OpenAI CEO in a podcast.
“If you want to sell your shares, I'll find you a buyer… enough,” Altman responded.
Meanwhile, Perplexity has reportedly been raising back to back funding rounds in the last few months, where its valuation soared from $14 billion to $50 billion in just a few months.