Transcription
explosive.
I have to look at it and WELCOME BACK TO SQUAWK BOX. PERPLEXITY, HOSTING ITS INAUGURAL DEVELOPER DAY, ROLLING OUT MORE THAN A DOZEN NEW PRODUCTS. AND JOINING US RIGHT NOW IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW IS PERPLEXITY CO-FOUNDER AND CEO ARVIND SRINIVAS. GOOD MORNING TO YOU. A WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW PRODUCTS, INCLUDING SOME THAT HAVE COME OUT PRIOR TO YESTERDAY, BUT OTHERS AS WELL. HELP US UNDERSTAND SORT OF WHERE PERPLEXITY IS GOING AND WHAT PERPLEXITY IS DOING DIFFERENTLY, FOR EXAMPLE, THAN HOW WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT RELATIVE TO SOME OF THE LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS THAT YOU RELY ON UNDERNEATH THE SERVICE.
GREAT TO BE BACK HERE, ANDREW. SO, PERPLEXITY SINCE THE LAUNCH OF COMPUTER, WE LIKE TO SAY EVERYTHING IS COMPUTER. WE INTRODUCED PERPLEXITY COMPUTER, WHICH IS A MASSIVE MULTI-MODAL ORCHESTRATION SYSTEM. AND JUST BY VIRTUE OF THAT WORD, THE DIFFERENCE ARISES FROM ALL THE MODEL PROVIDERS. A COMPUTER IS NOT JUST ONE MODEL. IN 2026 OR TOWARDS THE LATE OF LATE 2025, MODELS STARTED SPECIALIZING RATHER THAN COMMODITIZING. ANTHROPIC IS VERY GOOD AT CODING. OPENAI'S MODELS ARE VERY GOOD AT WRITING. GOOGLE'S MODELS ARE VERY GOOD AT MULTIMODAL. SO WHEN YOU ARE AT A COMPUTER AND IF YOU JUST WANT TO EMULATE WHATEVER YOU DO AS A HUMAN BEING ON A COMPUTER, WHATEVER DIGITAL TASK, IF YOU WANT, IF YOU WANT TO GIVE AI ACCESS TO EXACTLY THE SAME SET OF TOOLS, FILE SYSTEMS, AND SANDBOXES, YOU NEED ALL MODELS TO BE ABLE TO DO THE ENTIRE WORK. WHICH IS WHY PERPLEXITY SCIENCE, BECAUSE OUR FOCUS FROM THE BEGINNING HAS ALWAYS BEEN ON ACCURACY AND ORCHESTRATION. WE WANT TO BE THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR ACROSS ALL THESE DIFFERENT MODELS.
ARVIND, I'VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE WHAT COMPUTER IS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT USED. IT'S ONE OF THOSE THINGS WHERE IF YOU USE IT, YOU CAN FEEL IT AND UNDERSTAND IT MUCH HARDER TO DESCRIBE. I'VE TOLD PEOPLE, YOU KNOW, IT'S A LITTLE BIT LIKE OPEN CORE WITHOUT, YOU KNOW, WITHOUT SOME OF THE SECURITY BUGS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. BUT THEN THEY SAY, WELL, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? CAN YOU SORT OF JUST EXPLAIN IT IN THE SIMPLEST WAY YOU CAN?
SURE. THINK ABOUT YOU, ANDREW. WHEN YOU OPEN YOUR COMPUTER TO DO YOUR WORK, WHAT ARE ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE ACTUALLY NEEDED? IGNORE ALL THE AI MODELS OUT THERE. YOU NEED A BROWSER. YOU NEED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET. YOU NEED A FILE SYSTEM. YOU NEED TO KEEP. THERE NEEDS TO BE A PLACE WHERE YOU STORE ALL YOUR FILES, AND YOU NEED A WAY FOR PROGRAMS TO RUN YOUR SHELL OR YOUR TERMINAL. YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO EVEN LOOK AT IT, BUT THERE ARE PROGRAMS RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND. IF YOU PUT THESE THREE THINGS TOGETHER, YOU HAVE A COMPUTER READY TO GO. THIS IS ACTUALLY THE IDEA BEHIND SOME OF THE THINGS LIKE CHROMEBOOK, WHICH TRY TO PUT JUST THESE THREE ESSENTIAL THINGS INSIDE A COMPUTER. NOW, IF YOU WANT AN AI TO DO ALL THE WORK YOU AS A HUMAN BEING DO ON A COMPUTER. BUT EXCEPT IT'S RUNNING SECURELY IN SOME SERVER IN THE CLOUD, IF YOU PUT THESE THREE THINGS TOGETHER AND PAIR THEM WITH LLM MODELS, WHICH DO THE ORCHESTRATION, YOU ESSENTIALLY GET A DIGITAL WORKER ON THE CLOUD THAT'S RUNNING SECURELY ON A SANDBOX, WITH ALL ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA AND PERSISTENT STORAGE. THAT IS ESSENTIALLY WHAT COMPUTER IS. AND YOU BROUGHT AN OPEN CLUB. THE MAIN DIFFERENCE, AS YOU SAID, IS SECURITY. IT'S ALL RUNNING ON A SERVER SIDE. SECURITY DOES NOT GO OVERRIDE YOUR FILES, DOES NOT IMPORT MALWARE FROM A SKILLS HUB SOMEWHERE ON THE INTERNET DOES NOT HAVE YOU. DON'T GIVE IT FULL ACCESS TO ALL YOUR MESSAGES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. SO ALL THAT CONTROLS SECURITY AND THE. THE FACT THAT PERPLEXITY HAS ITS OWN COMMON BROWSER. SO WE CAN DO A GENETIC BROWSING ON YOUR BEHALF ON THE SERVER SIDE. THESE ARE THE MAJOR DIFFERENCES FROM EXISTING, LIKE HOBBY PROJECTS LIKE OPENFLOW.
HERE'S THE THING THAT I CAN'T UNDERSTAND LONG TERM. LOOK, OPEN CLAWS GOING TO OPENAI. I'M IMAGINING EVERYBODY'S GOING TO CREATE THEIR OWN VERSION OF SOMETHING THAT LOOKS LIKE COMPUTER. NOW I RECOGNIZE THAT, YOU KNOW, YOU'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO ORCHESTRATE IT USING MULTIPLE LMS, AND EACH LLM WILL ONLY BE DOING IT USING THEIR OWN. BUT AT SOME POINT, AREN'T ALL THESE LMS LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS EFFECTIVELY GOING TO CONVERGE AND BECOME SOMEWHAT COMMODITIZED?
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IS NOT HAPPENING. THAT'S WHAT WE THOUGHT WAS HAPPENING IN 2025, EARLY ON. BUT TOWARDS THE END OF 2025, WHAT HAPPENED WAS MODELS STARTED SPECIALIZING. I'M JUST CODING DARIO HERE. LIKE IN ONE OF HIS MOST RECENT INTERVIEWS, HE SAID THIS WHERE EVEN WITHIN CODING, WHICH YOU THINK MIGHT BE A SPECIALIZATION, OPENAI CODEX MODELS. ANTHROPIC CLOUD MODELS ARE VERY DIFFERENT IN TERMS OF WHAT THEY'RE GOOD AT ENCODING ITSELF. AND THIS IS ONE PARTICULAR SKILL. WRITING IS ANOTHER SKILL. BEING GOOD AT IMAGES AND VIDEOS IS ANOTHER SKILL. WHAT WE ARE SEEING AT LEAST, IS THAT ENTERPRISE USERS ARE ALWAYS SELECTING MULTIPLE DIFFERENT MODELS ALL THE TIME, AND THAT'S ACTUALLY ONE OF THE VALUE PROPOSITIONS OF THE PERPLEXITY PRODUCT, THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL LOCKED INTO ONE MODEL PROVIDER. YOU DON'T HAVE TO HAVE ONE HORSE IN THE RACE. YOU CAN HOPE THAT PERPLEXITY FIGURES OUT WHAT WHICH MODEL IS BEST FOR WHAT PURPOSE, AND YOU JUST HAVE TO COME TO THE PRODUCT AND USE IT. AND YOU CAN TRUST PERPLEXITY CARE. WE NEED TO DO FOR EACH MODEL.
LET ME ASK YOU A SEPARATE QUESTION. AS YOU KNOW, AMAZON HAS BEEN TRYING TO BLOCK YOUR COMET AI BROWSER. THEY WON IN COURT TO EFFECTIVELY PREVENT YOUR SERVICE FROM WHAT THEY THINK IS SCRAPING THEIR SERVICE. HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT AND WHAT IS THE IMPLICATION OF THAT CASE BOTH ON YOURSELF AND OTHER AI COMPANIES THAT EFFECTIVELY MAY TRY TO OR HAVE TO DO SIMILAR THINGS TO MAKE THE SERVICE WORK?
WHEN YOU GO TO A STORE, YOU WANT TO BUY SOMETHING VERY PERSONAL TO YOU, AND YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR FRIEND ALONG WITH YOU FOR HELP. MAKE THE RIGHT JUDGMENT CALL. BUT THE STORE OWNER TELLS YOU THAT YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO USE THEIR FRIEND TO HELP YOU MAKE THE DECISION. WHO IS ACTUALLY RIGHT HERE. OUR POSITION IS YOU CAN BRING YOUR OWN FRIEND AND THE JUDGE, EVEN IN THE, YOU KNOW, PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION RULING HAS SAID THAT PERPLEXITY IS ACTUALLY USEFUL TO THE USER AND IS NOT DOING ANYTHING EGREGIOUS. SO WE BELIEVE WE WILL WIN, AND WE'LL JUST LET THE LEGAL PROCESS FOLLOW.
I THINK THE ISSUE, AS FAR AS I UNDERSTAND IT, IS NOT SO MUCH THAT THAT THAT THE PERPLEXITY FRIEND IS, IS SOMEHOW DOING A DISSERVICE TO ME AS THE CONSUMER. BUT IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO HELP ME, THE CONSUMER, THAT POTENTIALLY YOU'RE ABLE TO SCRAPE AND COLLECT ALL SORTS OF INFORMATION THAT IN THE FUTURE COULD BE USED IN SOME OTHER WAY THAT IS UNINTENDED, AT LEAST BY A STORE OWNER, LIKE AN AMAZON.
WELL, OUR BROWSER IS ALWAYS LIKE FIRST CLASS IN TERMS OF HOW SECURE IT IS. LIKE WE HAVE PUBLISHED EVALS ON ASIAN RELIABILITY PROMPTS, SECURITY FROM PROMPT INJECTION ATTACKS. WE BUILT OUR OWN BENCHMARK FOR THAT. AND THESE ARE ALL LIKE THINGS THAT YOU CAN ONLY KEEP IMPROVING ON, RIGHT?