On Tuesday, Perplexity launched an API service called Sonar, allowing enterprises and developers to build the startup's generative AI search tools into their own applications.
“Most next-generation AI functions today have solutions informed only by training data, but this limits their capabilities,” writes Perplexity. Blog post. “Optimized for authenticity and authority, APIs require real-time connectivity to the Internet with answers from trusted sources.”
to begin Perplexity offers two tiers that developers can choose from: a cheaper and faster basic version; Better priced Sonar Pro version for Sonar and tough questions. Perplexity says the Sonar API allows enterprises and developers to customize the resources pulled by its AI search engine.
With the launch of its API, Perplexity makes its AI search engine available in more places than just its app and website. Perplexity says Zoom, among other companies, is already using Sonar to power an AI assistant for its video conferencing platform. Sonar allows Zoom's AI chatbot to provide real-time answers informed by quotes to web searches without requiring users to leave the video chat window.
Sonar can provide Perplexity, a particularly important source of income for investors of innovation. Perplexity offers a subscription-only service for unlimited access to its AI search engine and some additional features. However, The tech industry has been slashing prices to use AI tools through APIs for the past year, and Perplexity claims it offers the cheapest AI search API on the market through Sonar.
The basic version of Sonar offers a cheaper and faster version of the company's AI search tools. The basic version of Sonar uses a low-cost and lightweight model. $5 for every 1,000 searches and $1 for every 750,000 words you type into the AI model and $1 for every 750,000 words the model generates (roughly 1 million output tokens).
The more expensive Sonar Pro provides more detailed answers and can handle more complex questions. This version will perform multiple searches on top of a single user transaction, meaning pricing can be more unpredictable. Perplexity says this version has twice as many references as the base version of Sonar. Sonar Pro costs $5 for every 1,000 searches and $3 for every 750,000 words you type into the AI model, and $15 for every 750,000 words the model generates (roughly 1 million output tokens).
Sonar Pro Google, a benchmark that measures the accuracy of AI chatbot answers SimpleQA Perplexity claims it outperforms leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
As we recently reported, this is Perplexity's annual recurring revenue. Somewhere between $5 million and $10 million. For a startup of Perplexity's size and age, that seems relatively healthy; But the startup is definitely looking for new ways to increase its revenue. The startup raised another $73.6 million in a funding round earlier this month, valuing the company at $520 million.