The largest telecom company in South Korea, SK Telecom, has partnered with the American artificial intelligence startup Perplexity to provide its consumers with an AI-powered search engine that can replace Google and Naver.
According to the firms, the cooperation would enable SK Telecom’s subscribers to use Perplexity’s subscription version at no cost. Additionally, Perplexity’s proprietary models will be made available to SK Telecom users, enabling them to develop personal AI assistant products that have access to real-time information.
Laptops 1000SKT’s investment team stated in an interview that details about the cooperation, such as when to provide the Perplexity Pro edition to SKT users, still need to be ironed out.
According to them, SK Telecom did not rule out the possibility of investing in or forming joint ventures with Perplexity, which might lead to a financial expansion of the alliance.
CEO of Perplexity Aravind Srinivas stated in an interview, “It’s a win-win situation because SK Telecom is giving more value-add to their subscribers and we are getting access to their subscribers through their distribution channels.”
Perplexity AI, a competitor to Google search, responds to user queries and offers information sources via generative AI models.
It collected $73.6 million last month from investors, including Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Nvidia. IVP, a venture capital firm, led the round, which brought the company’s valuation to approximately $520 million.
According to Similarweb data, Perplexity, a company situated in San Francisco, California, received 45.6 million visitors to its website and mobile app in December. Both a free and a subscription version are available; the paid version costs $20 per month and allows for limitless searches.
Laptops 1000Working with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, SK Telecom has been investigating the use of generative AI and gaining access to cutting-edge technologies. It revealed last year that it would invest $100 million in American AI model developer Anthropic to work together to create a sizable language model for the telecom sector.
