Snap, the social media giant, is accelerating its bet on AI commercialization. On November 6, the company announced a strategic partnership with AI search startup Perplexity: Perplexity will pay Snap a total of $400 million in cash and equity to deeply integrate its AI search engine into the Snapchat app. In return, Perplexity's model will provide Q&A services for the 940 million monthly active users of Snapchat, becoming the core search engine for its "My AI" chatbot.
According to the agreement, this feature will officially launch in early 2026. At that time, when users ask My AI questions in Snapchat, the system will call Perplexity's AI engine to generate answers, rather than relying on traditional keyword searches or closed knowledge bases. This move not only significantly improves the accuracy and timeliness of responses but also marks a key transformation of Snapchat from a "social entertainment tool" to an "AI information entry point."
Image source note: The image is AI-generated, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney.
Snap stated that the related revenue will be included in the financial statements starting in 2026, opening up a new B2B monetization path for the company. This collaboration was also disclosed in Snap's third-quarter financial report: the company's Q3 revenue reached $1.51 billion, an increase of 10% year-over-year; net loss narrowed to $104 million (compared to $153 million last year), showing continued improvement in operational efficiency. Its paid subscription service, Snapchat+, has surpassed 17 million users, becoming an important carrier for high-value user operations.
For Perplexity, this collaboration marks a "user leap" milestone. As an AI startup known for its "answer engine," it previously mainly relied on web and independent apps for customer acquisition. By embedding into Snapchat—one of the most active social platforms for young people—Perplexity will reach hundreds of millions of potential users at once, greatly accelerating the spread of its technology and brand penetration.
AIbase believes that this deal is not just a technical integration, but a two-way empowerment of traffic and intelligence: Snap gains stable AI capabilities and a new revenue source, while Perplexity achieves large-scale implementation through social scenarios. In the trend where AI search moves from "replacing Google" to "embedding in super apps," the collaboration between Snap and Perplexity may become a new model for platform-based AI distribution.
