Perplexity Launches Sonar: AI Search API

Perplexity Launches Sonar API for AI-Powered Search Integration

On Tuesday, Perplexity introduced Sonar, a new API service. This allows businesses and developers to integrate the startup’s generative AI search capabilities directly into their own applications.

Limitations of Traditional Generative AI

Most current generative AI systems rely solely on their training data for responses. This inherently restricts their overall functionality. Perplexity highlighted in a blog post that achieving accuracy and reliability necessitates a live connection to the internet.

Answers should be grounded in information from reputable sources to ensure optimal factuality and authority when utilizing APIs.

Sonar and Sonar Pro: Two Tiered Options

Perplexity is initially providing two distinct tiers for developers to select from. These are Sonar, a more affordable and faster option, and Sonar Pro, designed for more challenging inquiries.

The Sonar API also empowers enterprises and developers to tailor the sources used by its AI search engine.

Expanded Accessibility Through API Integration

The launch of its API expands the availability of Perplexity’s AI search engine beyond its native app and website.

Zoom is already leveraging Sonar to enhance its video conferencing platform with an AI assistant. This integration allows Zoom’s AI chatbot to deliver real-time, cited answers directly within the video chat interface, eliminating the need for users to navigate away.

Potential Revenue Stream

Sonar presents Perplexity with a new potential revenue source, which is particularly significant for its investors.

Currently, Perplexity primarily offers a subscription model for unlimited access to its AI search engine and associated features. However, AI tool API access prices have decreased across the tech industry recently.

Perplexity asserts that Sonar provides the most cost-effective AI search API available.

Sonar Base Version Pricing

The base version of Sonar offers a streamlined and economical AI search solution. It utilizes a lightweight model with flat-rate pricing.

Costs are calculated as $5 per 1,000 searches, plus $1 for every 750,000 words inputted (approximately 1 million input tokens), and an additional $1 for every 750,000 words generated (roughly 1 million output tokens).

Sonar Pro: Enhanced Capabilities and Pricing

Sonar Pro delivers more comprehensive answers and can address more intricate questions. This version conducts multiple searches in response to a single user prompt, potentially leading to variable pricing.

Perplexity also states that Sonar Pro provides twice the number of citations compared to the base Sonar version.

Pricing for Sonar Pro is $5 per 1,000 searches, $3 for every 750,000 input words (around 1 million input tokens), and $15 for every 750,000 output words (approximately 1 million output tokens).

Performance Benchmarks

Perplexity claims that Sonar Pro surpassed leading models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic in factual correctness, as measured by the SimpleQA benchmark for AI chatbot responses.

Recent Funding

In December, Perplexity secured $500 million in funding led by Institutional Venture Partners, resulting in a company valuation of $9 billion.

Correction

A previous iteration of this article contained inaccurate information regarding Perplexity’s recent funding and annual recurring revenue. These details have been updated.