The integration is coming to Snapchat early next year.
Snap announced a $400 million deal with AI start-up Perplexity to integrate the company’s conversational search directly into Snapchat’s chat interface starting early 2026. Perplexity will pay Snap over one year in cash and equity, enabling users to ask questions and receive AI-driven answers within the app. The announcement sent Snap shares soaring more than 14% on 5 November, following a strong quarterly performance that saw the company generate $1.5 billion in revenue, up 10% year-on-year, with advertising accounting for $1.32 billion of that total.
The deal comes as Snapchat continues to grow its global user base, reaching 943 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 7% from last year. More than 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds in over two dozen countries now use the app. Snap said the partnership is aimed at making Snapchat a hub for AI discovery, complementing its existing AI feature, ‘My AI’, which is powered by OpenAI and Google technology. Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, emphasized that the integration will allow users to satisfy their curiosity directly within Snapchat.
Perplexity, however, has faced controversy over alleged illegal content scraping and was recently sued by Amazon for enabling its AI agent, Comet, to make online purchases. The start-up was also de-listed by Cloudflare in August for stealth crawling websites. Despite these controversies, the company continues to pursue high-profile partnerships, including a multi-year deal with Getty Images, and now its major integration with Snapchat highlights its growing influence in the AI space.
