Perplexity just made impulse buying even easier

PERPLEXITY

Perplexity just made impulse buying even easier

Perplexity is stepping up its e-commerce game with a new partnership that makes it easier to shop without ever leaving a chat.

The AI company is teaming up with PayPal to let U.S. users book travel, buy products, and get concert tickets directly inside the platform.

It’s all handled in-chat using PayPal or Venmo, with one-click checkout thanks to PayPal’s passkey feature.

Once a purchase is made, PayPal takes care of the rest, processing payments, shipping, tracking, and even support.

Perplexity first introduced shopping tools last year for its paying U.S. users.

Now it’s going further by making the whole process, from discovery to payment, happen inside the same chat.

That’s something rival tools like ChatGPT haven’t rolled out yet.

This shift comes as payment giants like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal all race to embed AI into online shopping.

In April, all three launched tools to support “agentic commerce”, where AI agents handle browsing, buying, and checkout without users lifting a finger.

Visa is even working with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity to make this happen.

Here’s what’s happening:

• Perplexity users will soon be able to buy things directly through chat using PayPal or Venmo.

• Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal are all building AI tools to power agent-led shopping experiences.

• AI-fuelled sales hit $229B during the 2023 holiday season, and that number is still climbing.

Venmo me, but make it futuristic

PayPal says its edge lies in handling both sides of a transaction, authenticating buyers and sellers, auto-filling shipping details, and reducing friction.

It’s also giving developers a toolkit to build these AI-powered shopping flows into other platforms.

As all this unfolds, Perplexity is reportedly wrapping up a $500 million funding round, valuing the company at $14 billion, slightly lower than its original goal, but still a strong vote of confidence in the AI-commerce space.

If ChatGPT starts doing this too, I’m gonna need a spending ban.