Perplexity brings Yelp data to its chatbot


Illustration of a line art pixel brain filled with computer commands, files, and folders.
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas tells The Verge that many people are using chatbots like regular search engines. It makes sense to offer information on things they look for, like restaurants, directly from the source. So it’s integrating Yelp’s maps, reviews, and other details in responses when people ask for restaurant recommendations.

“Our underlying motivation is that we started off as this tool that appealed to people doing fact checks and research. But research can be on anything, like what if you’re a coffee addict, you’d want to know where the good coffee shops are,” says Srinivas.

As The Verge’s David Pierce recently pointed out, how Perplexity mixes text and links when answering questions was already a selling point compared to...

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