SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s leading telecommunications company, said Wednesday it will join hands with Perplexity, a U.S. artificial intelligence startup, in a bid to transform the global search engine market.

In a joint press conference in Seoul, SK Telecom and Perplexity outlined their vision to co-lead the AI search market by making mutual investments to develop a personal AI agent (PAA) and AI search services targeting both global and South Korean users.

“Cooperation with Perplexity, a dark horse in the global AI search engine market, will create unprecedented value and experience for both domestic and global customers with AI technology,” SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang said.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, visiting Seoul for the first time, said he views South Korea as one of the most important markets with high usage of the service and fast adoption of evolving technologies.

Srinivas said his company is looking for a “fundamentally new way” to organize the information on the internet, aiming to m
ake it more “personalized” and “accessible” for users.

SK Telecom Co. CEO Ryu Young-sang (L) and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas pose for a photo during a joint press conference held in Seoul on Sept. 4, 2024. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

As part of the collaboration, Perplexity will invest in SK Telecom’s U.S.-based AI subsidiary, Global AI Platform Co., which is set to launch a global PAA service in the world’s biggest market.

Through this investment, Perplexity will become a key search partner, helping SK Telecom’s PAA service deliver a wide array of information using multiple large language models.

This partnership builds on SK Telecom’s earlier investment of $10 million in Perplexity in June.

In addition to their global efforts, SK Telecom and Perplexity also plan to develop an AI search engine tailored specifically to South Korean users, enhancing SK Telecom’s local AI assistant service, A.

Founded in 2022, Perplexity offers an AI search service, which is seen as a challenger to Google, the world
‘s biggest search engine. It uses generative AI models to answer users’ inquiries swiftly, providing sources of information.

Source: Yonhap News Agency