Through this partnership, Perplexity and PayPal intend to enable optimised, in-flow shopping via Agentic AI. Initially, the two companies plan to launch the service in the US in the summer of 2025, allowing consumers to check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo when they ask Perplexity to find products, book travel, or buy tickets.
As a conversational search and discovery engine, Perplexity merges live web data with generative models to offer cited answers in a single chat. With its solutions, which individuals can leverage to research a topic, compare products, or plan a trip, Perplexity converts natural questions into ready-to-use results, augmenting how people decide and learn online.
Optimising commerce with Agentic AI
By working together, Perplexity and PayPal aim to provide additional capabilities, allowing users to benefit from a simplified and secure shopping experiences in the chat. Commenting on the news, representatives from Perplexity highlighted their company’s commitment to delivering accurate, trustworthy answers when individuals make decisions. Partnering with PayPal, which shares a vision of how crucial trust is in the rise of AI, the firm intends to both serve the needs of its users and advance the technology.
The process, including payment, shipping, tracking, and invoicing, is set to be managed by PayPal’s account linking, secure tokenized wallet, and passkey checkout flows, which could mitigate the need for passwords and simplify the experience. Among the capabilities that the collaboration will bring, the two companies mention:
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Agentic commerce through the integration of PayPal’s commerce solutions, allowing users to buy products or services directly in Perplexity’s chat interface;
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Worldwide reach, with the move scaling Perplexity’s commerce tools to PayPal’s active accounts across nearly 200 markets;
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Safe transactions through PayPal’s fraud detection and data security protocols.
PayPal’s contribution to advancing Agentic AI
PayPal positioned itself among the recent companies working on accelerating the adoption and capabilities of Agentic AI, with the company launching its Agent Toolkit to facilitate the integration of its suite of APIs onto various AI frameworks for developers. The company also planned to equip developers and merchants with tools to create modern shopping practices, enabling them to support Agentic AI experiences that assist customers in paying, tracking shipments, and managing invoices, driven by PayPal and within an AI agent.
