Perplexity CEO, Aravind Srinivas clarifies on reports claiming that Perplexity’s browser will track everything users do online
Recently, in a TBPN podcast, Perplexity CEO, Aravind Srinivas, was invited as a guest, where he talked about Perplexity’s upcoming browser. But some statements in the podcast seemed to be misunderstood as soon as the podcast, reports of Perplexity browser tracking everything users do online outside of its own app, started spreading over the internet.
This news caught a lot of attention online, which resulted in Perplexity CEO clarifying his statement. Tech Crunch also wrote an article with the headline, “Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell hyper personalized ads.” This article was also shared on the X platform.
Perplexity CEO, Aravind CEO, reacted to this X post, calling it a low-effort clickbait article that takes things out of context.
Low effort clickbait article that takes things out of context. The podcast hosts asked me a hypothetical question about how ads could play out in AI products including Perplexity. I laid out a scenario. The core point was first cracking memory and personalization if you do want…
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) April 24, 2025
He further clarified that he was asked a hypothetical question about how ads could play out in AI products, including AI, to which the CEO laid out a scenario. In this scenario, the core point was first cracking memory and personalization if you do want relevant ads. As per the CEO, memory and personalization are problems that absolutely need to be worked on, whether you do ads or not, for a fully functional AI assistant. And every user will be given the option to not be a part of the personalization (with zero ads even) if they don’t want it. It was specified that it is up to users whether they want to make a trade-off between utility and privacy.
In the podcast, the CEO revealed that the upcoming browser will be released by mid-May.
Stay tuned with The Tech Outlook for more latest updates.
