From Search Engine to Life Assistant: How Perplexity Plans to Transform AI Interaction
"People are definitely going to start asking AIs to do stuff for them, rather than just going back and forth asking questions while doing the work themselves," Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas revealed in a candid discussion about the company's future direction.
The AI search engine is preparing to evolve far beyond its current capabilities, End of Miles reports, as Srinivas laid out a three-stage vision for Perplexity's transformation from an answer engine to an actionable assistant.
Beyond search: The three-phase evolution
Srinivas envisions a dramatic expansion of Perplexity's capabilities, starting with personal data integration before advancing to workplace automation and eventually handling everyday life tasks.
"Start with being able to answer anything about your data that lives inside your email clients and calendars, etc beyond just the web. Expand from there to performing basic actions for you at work. And expand further to doing anything for you in life too: shopping, travel, reservations, etc." Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity CEO
This approach signals a fundamental shift in how Perplexity positions itself in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Rather than competing solely as a search alternative, the AI specialist is betting that users will increasingly delegate tasks to AI systems rather than merely seeking information.
Why task execution is the new frontier
The Stanford-educated CEO believes the future of AI interaction is moving away from the back-and-forth Q&A that characterizes current AI assistants. What's more, this evolution will happen regardless of whether companies embrace it.
"I think if the progress in AI reasoning models continues, search itself might be more for the curious minded. And people are going to be using AIs largely for workflows and tasks which will require plenty of search in the loop, but will move to the abstraction of asking AIs to do work for you, instead." Srinivas
The company's strategy is to "embrace this early and try to disrupt ourselves by building agents and workflows" rather than being caught flat-footed by the transition, he explained.
From information to reservation
Among the more intriguing possibilities Srinivas discussed was using AI agents to handle interactions with local businesses—potentially disrupting how consumers connect with service providers.
"Local businesses and services, their phone numbers, and how to easily reach them, and even tasking an AI agent to do the phone calls and reservations is a big unlock. We will look into this as we prioritize our work on verticals." The Perplexity founder
This vision extends to specialized verticals as well. When asked about developing a cricket app, he noted that Perplexity has already begun exploring sports-specific applications with their IPL (Indian Premier League) coverage.
The competitive landscape
Perplexity's move toward task-performing agents comes as major tech companies are racing to transform generative AI from tools that provide information to systems that complete tasks. The shift represents a strategic repositioning as the company acknowledges that the practical value of AI will increasingly be measured by what it can accomplish, not just what it can explain.
Beyond search capabilities, Srinivas confirmed plans to integrate with numerous productivity platforms including "Calendar, Email, OneDrive, Dropbox, Slack and Notion," creating a comprehensive ecosystem that leverages personal data across applications to power these new agent capabilities.
The Perplexity CEO's vision suggests that while the company made its name by reimagining search, its future may depend on how successfully it can transition to this new paradigm where AI doesn't just inform human action—it replaces it.
