Perplexity, firmly Build Merchant Network to Power GenAI Commerce

In a bold bet on the future of GenAI-driven commerce, Perplexity.ai has announced a partnership with firmly.ai that could change how consumers discover and purchase products and services, including travel and sports.

The agreement gives merchants a front-row seat on Perplexity’s rapidly growing GenAI-driven platform, giving them a potential sale at the moment they seek detailed buying guidance. Several sources have put Perplexity’s user base north of 15 million users.

According to exclusive interviews with executives from both companies, the move is set against a backdrop of rapid adoption of GenAI-based shopping tools, with more consumers turning to Perplexity’s “answer engine” to guide their purchases.

By teaming with firmly, Perplexity users will be able to browse and buy products without leaving the platform, preserving consumer attention while streamlining the journey from inquiry to checkout. The technology also promises to protect merchants’ data and brand identity by allowing them to remain the merchant of record, even as they plug into this new digital sales channel.

firmly’s business model centers on what it calls an “Agentic Commerce Platform,” enabling merchants to reach new buyers across diverse digital channels with minimal engineering effort. Acting as the behind-the-scenes connector, firmly allows merchants to integrate once — through a single API — and instantly make their products available to platforms like Perplexity, social media sites and other digital touchpoints.

By letting merchants maintain full control over transactions and customer relationships, firmly positions itself as a discreet ally in the eCommerce ecosystem, removing the technical hurdles that typically hamper multi-channel expansion.

The Perplexity Shopping Vision

Yet the ultimate vision for shopping on Perplexity is about more than plug-ins.

According to Taz Patel, Perplexity’s head of advertising, the strategy hinges on following “user behavior traits” to serve the consumer at the right moment in their path to purchase.

Speaking in a recent conversation hosted by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Patel said that Perplexity’s approach is user-driven: “We’re seeing that the users are actually acting and engaging with the queries they’re putting into Perplexity,” he told Webster. “Once we provide them the ability to actually shop in a quicker fashion, they’re doing it.”

He emphasized that shoppers who find the right product details and trusted sources in one place “tend to do more of it and do more of it frequently.”

When asked how Perplexity differs from giants like Amazon and from traditional search engines, Patel described Perplexity’s evolving “answer engine,” which is less about linking people out to various sites and more about equipping them with the details they need right then and there.

“We have something called ‘related questions,’” he said, “which really enhances the experience for someone to have a follow-up that feels very natural to their initial query. When people get the information with the right citations and sources provided in a way they can consume it, they feel more comfortable taking action.”

That comfort factor, he suggested, was key to the decision to integrate a native checkout feature — an undertaking that, on the back end, required a scale partner like firmly to tie in real-time inventory, shipping data and merchant of record status without burdensome integrations.

Partnership Insights

The basis for Perplexity’s new partnership was the platform’s emerging insight that consumers were already doing more than simple product comparison. Shoppers posed long, specific questions — “Which 55-inch TV under $2,000 fits in a 10-by-10 room?” — that signaled strong intent to buy.

Patel noted that by the time these users arrive at Perplexity with such detailed queries, “they’re already moved down the funnel because they’re thinking about something.”

That insight underpinned the need for a frictionless, in-platform checkout. “We launched in our initial sort of shopping experience, and it was fantastic,” Patel said.

Enter firmly, which solves a long-standing hurdle in eCommerce: bridging merchants to new channels without expensive or lengthy tech revamps. “It’s almost impossible for an individual merchant to integrate with these types of platforms one by one,” said firmly Co-Founder and CEO Kumar Senthil during the conversation. “And that’s where we come in and provide this type of bridge, which connects to all the merchants and also makes it easier for a marketplace like Perplexity to scale quickly.”

The firm’s zero-engineering approach means that merchants can reach Perplexity’s users simply by opting in — no 18-month development cycles or complicated point-of-sale overhauls. “If I have to go and integrate with these types of platform experiences, it’s a problem for both parties,” Senthil said. “We’re solving for both.”

Patel stressed that Perplexity sees consumer trust and user privacy as integral to its approach. While typical search engines rely heavily on sponsored links and targeted ads, Perplexity relies on a combination of paid Pro subscriptions, an early-stage advertising program, and — now — transaction-based partnerships.

“Yes, it’s early. But we see ads as a natural integration over time,” Patel said. “And I’m sure there will be new things we don’t know, because we’re really following what our users are doing.”

From a monetization standpoint, he outlined several high-growth areas: personal subscriptions through Perplexity Pro, an API for third-party developers building on top of Perplexity’s platform, and commerce streams enabled by the new checkout experience.

Shopper Behavior

As for how users are specifically employing Perplexity for shopping, Patel shared that the earliest power users often asked about technology gear — computers, televisions or software. But the platform is moving swiftly into new verticals, including household essentials, meal planning and even health and wellness products. Travel and sports are on the launch pad as well, particularly as consumers use Perplexity to structure more complex questions or trip-planning routines.

“We don’t just have this navigational use,” Patel said. “People aren’t coming to Perplexity to get to something.com, they’re coming for an answer that helps them do something. In this case, it’s about shopping. But there’s a lot more that folks are doing, and we want to enhance each category.”

By furnishing real-time data — inventory, shipping times and user reviews — Perplexity aims to save people the typical “blue link chase” that can leave them uncertain or lost.

Much of the excitement stems from a vision of personalized, concierge-like GenAI assistance. Patel envisions a day when Perplexity can detect that a user is planning a trip to Las Vegas — perhaps after scanning their queries about flights, hotels and show tickets — and recommend a last-minute rain jacket if inclement weather is forecast.

Asked about the business model behind these efforts, Patel said merchants do not pay a fee to join Perplexity’s marketplace, while consumers gain immediate, frictionless access to purchase flows.

“We’re not looking to disintermediate anyone,” he said.

Instead, the aim is to deepen the ecosystem that Perplexity’s GenAI engine has been cultivating since its inception in 2022. Patel also said Perplexity is not planning to stop with retail: “We introduced enriched experiences initially for finance, and now for shopping. Next is travel, sports, and who knows what else? If we see a need for a new feature, or if user behavior points that way, we’ll pursue it.”

Longer term, Patel believes that personalization — learning from each user’s history of queries — is where Perplexity will shine, since the platform can serve more relevant recommendations and results.

“We’re not dictating user behavior,” Patel told Webster. “We’re following it, seeing how and where we can remove friction.” He added that all signals point to a future in which consumers carry out more of their everyday tasks, from product comparisons to final checkouts, within Perplexity itself. The key challenge is maintaining the trust that has drawn millions of queries each week.

Yet in Patel’s own words, the journey is just getting started.

“Yes, growth is important,” he said, reflecting on where Perplexity’s commerce experiment might go in the next 12 months. “But personalization is going to be embedded across everything you do on Perplexity,” he added.

Ultimately, however, Patel acknowledged that the true roadmap will be shaped by unpredictable user demands.

“We have a good handle on the things we do know,” he said. “But I’m sure there’ll be new things we don’t know yet — because we’re really following what our users are doing.”