Perplexity has landed a major deal to embed its AI search inside Snapchat, which reports credit with over 100 million daily users. Collaborating with Snap and its My AI bot, Perplexity is set to pay Snap $400 million in a mix of cash and equity to power answers. The deal brings Perplexity a vast base of users, while equipping Snap with a more powerful, conversational search utility that keeps users in the app.
What the deal covers inside Snapchat’s My AI integration
Snap says the integration will surface Perplexity’s AI answers when users ask My AI for information, recommendations, or explanations. The feature will come to life inside Snapchat’s interface early next year, and Snap said it anticipates recognizing revenue from the arrangement in 2026.
The companies packaged the deal as a distribution and technology partnership: Perplexity got prime real estate inside a major social app, and Snap received a next-gen search engine tuned for chat. Snap said the integration will bring Perplexity to over 940 million Snapchat users, a level of scale that could dramatically ramp up daily query volume from day one.
Why Snap wants AI-powered search to elevate engagement
Snap’s My AI was rolled out as a conversational assistant based solely on large language models licensed from third parties such as OpenAI. The next challenge is to ensure those conversations are consistently well-informed and action-oriented. Search-quality answers in chat can also drive engagement, extend sessions, and open up new commercial surfaces for local discovery, shopping, and recommendations — where intent signals are stronger than passive scrolling.
The latest quarterly results of Snap underscored the need to look for more than ads as it tries to improve upon a performance that lifted revenue to $1.51 billion, up 10 percent from a year earlier, while shrinking losses to $104 million. Its subscription tier, Snapchat+, has surpassed 17 million members, proving that people will pay for premium features. A smarter in-app search layer can serve both ads and subscriptions by increasing relevance, unlocking premium tools, and enabling early-access features.
What the partnership could mean for Perplexity’s strategy
For Perplexity, the tie-up is a big-time distribution coup. The company has carved out a space with quick, cited answers and a streamlined (Q&A-first) interface. Embedding that into the experience where hundreds of millions already spend their time is a bet that mainstream search is moving from ten blue links to conversational, task-focused results served inside the apps people use most.
The deal also places Perplexity in a wider competition to be the default AI search layer across consumer platforms. Google is shoving AI Overviews, Microsoft has threaded Copilot through Bing and Windows, and third-party players like Brave and DuckDuckGo are redefining private search experiences. Social discovery is also growing: Industry surveys from research firms like eMarketer have found that Gen Z starts more and more of its product and venue searches inside social apps, not old-fashioned search engines.
There are risks. Perplexity has come under increasing scrutiny due to the way its agentic browsing capabilities scrape and display web content, and is now in danger of legal action following allegations from Amazon regarding access. Operating within Snapchat raises the stakes for safety, accuracy, and attribution — particularly with a younger audience. Look for conservative guardrails, strong sourcing, and syncing with Snap’s much-publicized trust-and-safety principles.
Timeline and financial impact of the Snap–Perplexity deal
Snap says the integration will roll out early in 2025, initially targeted at My AI responses. In the future, AI search could be brought to more contexts — to Spotlight for content discovery, Maps for local results, and Camera for on-the-spot suggestions, for example — though the companies didn’t provide a detailed product roadmap.
Financially, the $400 million package highlights just how valuable distribution is now in this AI cycle. Instead of paying on web growth or traditional marketing, Perplexity is buying guaranteed placement and high-frequency queries. Revenue recognition that starts in 2026 would imply a structured, multi-year agreement for Snap, such as one with performance milestones or usage thresholds.
The strategic stakes for social platforms and search
If successful, the partnership could reset how social platforms capitalize on search intent. In-chat responses cut down on bounce-outs to web browsers, keeping actions — and potential ad interactions — inside Snapchat. AI-written summaries with accompanying links, Lenses, or Place profiles could speed discovery and conversion for creators and businesses without users having to exit the app.
The larger question is whether an AI-native search experience inside social can modify consumer behaviors broadly. With Snapchat a daily-use app for teens in those and other industry polls, Perplexity now has a direct line to the generation that is most likely to normalize conversational search. If engagement rises and quality remains high, this could serve as a template for how AI search can fit into consumer apps far beyond messaging.
