Perplexity AI, the AI-powered search engine launched in 2022, just announced a milestone that surprised the industry: 100 million monthly active users as of June 2026. A year ago, the number was still around 10 million. This 10x growth in 12 months is not an anomaly, it is confirmation that AI search has gone mainstream.
Why is Perplexity growing so fast?
Perplexity stands out because of its unique approach: every answer comes with clickable sources, which feels more trustworthy than an opaque AI answer. That draws in users who were previously hesitant about AI over fears of hallucination. On top of that, Perplexity has been aggressively building integrations with devices and platforms, including Samsung and several major telecom carriers.
How Perplexity chooses which brands to mention
Unlike ChatGPT, which leans more on training data, Perplexity actively indexes the web in real time. That means a brand that consistently produces fresh content, blog articles, recent reviews, press releases, has a much better chance of showing up in a Perplexity answer. That makes content strategy a crucial part of GEO specifically for Perplexity.
Implications for brand strategy in Indonesia
Perplexity now belongs on the list of platforms brands must monitor, not just ChatGPT and Gemini. Indonesian brands active on Perplexity can build an early advantage before competitors realize the urgency. Fratello tracks Perplexity as one of the four core AI engines monitored every week.