Perplexity is deepening its push into ecommerce.
The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engine announced a new integration with Firmly.ai, a Seattle-based startup that powers native checkout within digital experiences, in a press release.
The goal: Let consumers shop directly from Perplexity’s search results — and make it easier for merchants of any size to join.
“Partnering with firmly.ai enables us to achieve our vision even faster by making it effortless for merchants to join us and easier for more consumers to natively go from answers to actions within Perplexity,” said Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer at Perplexity, in the release.
The tie-up is Perplexity’s next move into ecommerce following the launch of its shopping feature for paid Pro users in November 2024. That update allowed its subscribers to purchase products directly within the platform. Since then, shopping-related queries on Perplexity have jumped fivefold, the company said.
How Perplexity wants to streamline ecommerce
As more retailers integrate AI into the shopping experience, Perplexity’s Firmly.ai partnership will target smaller merchants with what the companies see as a low-barrier way to compete.
By embedding Firmly.ai‘s agentic commerce technology, Perplexity says it enables users to complete the full shopping journey — from discovery to checkout — directly within its interface.
It is betting that consumers are increasingly open to making purchases from the same place they search. For merchants, the appeal lies in reaching new customers without giving up control of the sale.
“Merchants can access millions of potential customers while protecting the value of their brand,” Perplexity stated in the press release.
The integration is designed to keep participation simple. Merchants can join Perplexity’s marketplace through a single API, according to the company.
Importantly, sellers also retain their role as the merchant of record. Brands that use Perplexity to sell through the Firmly.ai partnership will receive all revenue from each purchase. Perplexity says it does not take a cut or charge fees to join the marketplace at this time.
“Our mission at firmly.ai has always been to remove barriers in ecommerce, making it as frictionless as possible for both merchants and consumers,” said Firmly.ai CEO and co-founder Kumar Senthil in the announcement.
Senthil added that the goal is to reduce friction across the funnel.
“By combining our native checkout technology with Perplexity’s cutting-edge AI, we’re not only simplifying the shopping process but also empowering merchants to reach new customers without any integration hassle,” he said in a statement.
AI’s role in the ecommerce race
The latest shopping feature is separate from Perplexity’s ad product, which debuted in late 2024.
But both are part of the same strategy to help monetize search through commerce.
Perplexity, founded in 2022 by former executives from OpenAI, Quora, Bing and other major tech companies, claims it now answers more than 125 million questions per week. Now, the company is looking to convert that traffic into transactions.
Whether Perplexity can turn its growing user base into actual buyers remains to be seen, especially in a space where Amazon and Google have long set the standard for online product discovery.
Amazon, for its part, continues to expand its AI efforts. The retailer recently introduced “Interests,” a discovery tool that sends ongoing product alerts based on shopper prompts. That follows earlier AI rollouts, including its Rufus virtual assistant for consumers and Amelia assistant for marketplace sellers. Amazon is also rolling out Alexa+, an upgraded version of its voice assistant that incorporates generative artificial intelligence (AI) — and it will come with ecommerce features at launch.
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