Aravind Srinivas

Aravind Srinivas is an Indian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur who co-founded and leads Perplexity AI, one of the fastest-growing challengers to traditional web search. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Srinivas went on to pursue a PhD in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on deep reinforcement learning, before working in AI research roles at organisations including OpenAI and Google DeepMind — experience that shaped his conviction that large language models could fundamentally rework how people find and verify information online.

In August 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski, launching its flagship 'answer engine' in December of that year. Rather than returning a list of links, Perplexity uses large language models to synthesise direct, cited answers to user queries in real time, positioning the product as a conversational, source-transparent alternative to conventional search engines.

Under Srinivas's leadership, Perplexity scaled rapidly, reportedly handling hundreds of millions of queries a month and reaching a valuation of roughly $20 billion by early 2026, backed by investors including major venture funds and strategic technology partners. The company secured a large multi-year compute commitment with Microsoft Azure to support its growth, and in 2025 made headlines with an unsolicited, multibillion-dollar bid to acquire Google's Chrome browser, a move widely read as a statement of ambition to sit at the centre of how people browse and query the web.

In 2026, Srinivas steered Perplexity toward a subscription-first business model, arguing publicly that advertising-funded answer engines create incentives that erode user trust, and that a paid model better aligns the company with delivering objective, unbiased answers. This positioning has made him an outspoken commentator on the incentives shaping AI-powered information products, and a vocal critic of how legacy search advertising models interact with generative AI.

Still in his thirties, Srinivas has become one of the most recognisable founders in the generative AI wave, frequently invited to testify, speak and debate on AI's implications for search, publishing and the open web. Perplexity's trajectory under his leadership is widely seen as a bellwether for whether AI-native products can meaningfully displace incumbent search and data-discovery giants.