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WTF Happened to Perplexity? AI Search Crisis
The AI search darling's identity crisis: why Perplexity's 38x valuation paradox has the internet asking what happened, plus the chart that explains it.
Perplexity went from the most exciting answer engine in AI to the company the internet keeps asking “what happened?” about. In “WTF Happened to Perplexity?!”, Utsav Techie unpacks how a startup that once looked like Google’s heir apparent ended up at the centre of quality complaints, scraping controversies and a very expensive identity crisis.
The paradox in one chart
The numbers tell a strange story. Perplexity’s reported valuation rocketed from roughly $520M in January 2024 to a reported $20B by late 2025 — about 38x in under two years — while a growing share of its own user base started asking whether the answers were actually getting worse.
What the video digs into
- The quality slide — paying users reporting thinner, less reliable answers, and questions over which models really sit behind the product.
- The scraping controversies — accusations of ignoring crawling rules and publisher opt-outs that damaged trust with the open web.
- The headline moves — the Comet browser launch and a jaw-dropping $34.5B unsolicited bid for Chrome that split opinion between bold strategy and PR stunt.
- The squeeze — ChatGPT search, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode closing in from both sides of the market.
It’s a sharp look at what happens when hyper-growth outruns product trust — and a case study every AI team should be paying attention to.
🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube
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