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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Perplexity and PayPal have launched an “instant buy” feature.
- It allows users to complete purchases within a Perplexity chat.
- Only five brands are currently available, with more on the way.
Perplexity and PayPal are capitalizing on the upcoming holiday shopping rush with a new “instant buy” feature, which allows users to securely purchase products via their PayPal account – without leaving their Perplexity chat.
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The feature is built on top of Perplexity’s AI-powered shopping agent, which the company introduced last year, and is free starting Tuesday for all US users on the company’s website and desktop app. It will be available for iOS and Android in the coming weeks, according to a company blog post.
How it works
That agent is designed to operate as a virtual shopping assistant, taking specific user queries – like, “I’m looking for a comfortable but stylish pair of boots to keep my feet warm and dry through the New York winter” – and then digging through the web to surface personalized results, along with relevant customer reviews and other useful information. It also references past chats to flesh out individual user profiles over time, allowing it to recall certain details about their life and taste that are germane to a product recommendation.
Similarly to Amazon’s “Buy Now” button, which enables online shoppers to immediately purchase a product without first adding it to their online cart, Perplexity’s new instant buy feature is intended to minimize the number of steps between product discovery and checkout, thereby theoretically increasing the chances that a customer will complete a purchase.
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The feature offers brands a mechanism through which they can get the right products in front of a customer quickly, rather than forcing them to scroll through a dense, ad-filled grid of different options.
“Shoppers and merchants demand a better e-commerce experience in the age of AI, one that’s as personalized as it is seamless,” Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s Chief Business Officer, said in a statement.
Currently, product catalogues from just five brands – including Abercrombie & Fitch, Ashley Furniture, and Fabletics – are available for purchase through the new instant buy feature, but “many others” will eventually be onboarded, according to a press release issued by Perplexity.
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As a holiday shopping incentive, Perplexity users who complete a purchase before 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1 via the PayPal-powered instant buy feature will receive a one-time payment of 50% of the purchase price back into their account (with a $50 limit).
The era of AI-powered shopping
Perplexity has been competing with other developers to build AI agents that can assist users with online shopping, among other tasks. Users can prompt Agent mode in OpenAI’s Atlas browser, for example, to add particular items to an online shopping cart for them and review the final order before purchase. Google’s AI Mode offers gift suggestion capabilities that include surfacing products.
Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce site, launched an AI shopping assistant named Rufus in July. The company also recently threatened legal action against Perplexity, claiming that Perplexity’s own agent has been illegally and surreptitiously operating on behalf of users on Amazon’s website.
Also: How small businesses can survive AI shopping: 7 essential steps
AI shopping assistants represent just one of the many fronts in the ongoing competition between tech companies to fuse agents into virtually every major touchpoint of users’ digital lives, from email and browsing to everyday search.
