Perplexity: Company Plans IPO in 2028 Regardless of Anthropic and OpenAI's Listing Progress
Perplexity’s CEO dropped a reassurance pill in an interview: IPO in 2028, regardless of what Anthropic and OpenAI do. The statement sounds tough, but on closer inspection, it seems more like boosting his own courage.
Analysis
Perplexity’s CEO dropped a reassurance pill in an interview: IPO in 2028, regardless of what Anthropic and OpenAI do. The statement sounds tough, but on closer inspection, it seems more like boosting his own courage.
Frankly, Perplexity’s timing for this announcement is quite subtle. OpenAI has already secretly submitted its IPO filing, Anthropic is frequently in the capital market spotlight, and the entire AI community is buzzing about the race to "go public first." At this moment, the CEO steps up to say, "We’ll follow our own pace." On the surface, it appears strategic composure, but deep down, anxiety is hard to hide—after all, when it comes to valuations, the first to list sets the benchmark, and later entrants can only price themselves based on others’ favor.
However, Srinivas has bet on one thing correctly: the AI search space is far from being a settled battle. Perplexity’s greatest advantage isn’t how powerful its technology is, but the awkward yet genuine niche it has carved between Google and OpenAI—users want answers, not ten links to click. This demand isn’t glamorous, but it’s solid. An IPO in 2028 means he still has a four-year window to prove that the search paradigm can truly be disrupted, not just patched over by big tech.
That said, four years in the AI field is almost like a geological era. A company valued at billions today might be crushed tomorrow by some open-source model. By betting on 2028, Perplexity is wagering that it can survive as a small but profitable cash cow in the giants’ shadow, rather than being dragged into a money-burning war and obliterated. This gamble, honestly, is even more thrilling than the technical roadmap itself.
Looking closer to home, China’s A-share semiconductor sector surged today. Inventmicro rose over 7%, with GigaDevice and Eoptolink following suit. On the surface, it looks like a chip rally, but the underlying logic is actually a spillover from the global AI arms race—you need computing power for large models, chips for computing power, and the narrative of domestic chip substitution will always find a market. But such rallies often mean that by the time retail investors pile in, they’re already catching the tail end of the story.
What’s truly interesting is the trending headline: "ChatGPT’s Biggest Ever Update—It’s Not Just for Chatting." If true, OpenAI is essentially transforming ChatGPT from a conversational tool into an operating system. If this move succeeds, it means the AI battlefield shifts from "who’s smarter" to "who has a deeper ecosystem." But the risk is also obvious—Apple once thought the same way, and Siri hasn’t made meaningful progress in a decade. Ambitions to turn tools into platforms have historically seen very few success stories.
One easily overlooked piece of information is: "After adopting AI, a company stopped hiring." This is the AI issue that deserves the most discussion in 2025. The cost-cutting efficiency axe of enterprises will inevitably hit the job market sooner or later. Perplexity’s CEO talks about IPOs, OpenAI discusses platformization, and the media focuses on valuations and growth curves—but who talks about those who are being "optimized away"? The dividends of technological progress have never been evenly distributed, and our discussion on this issue remains stuck on comforting but empty platitudes like "AI will create new jobs."
At the end of the day, today’s AI scene is like a game of Texas Hold’em—Perplexity is pretending to stay calm, OpenAI is going all-in, China’s semiconductor sector is riding the hype, while ordinary users and practitioners can only watch the table, guessing who the real players are and who are just leeks waiting to be harvested.
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