Perplexity has made quite a splash in India’s AI scene. Considered to be among the fiercest rivals to Sam Altman’s OpenAI ChatGPT and Sundar Pichai’s Google Gemini, the rise of Perplexity has been fueled by its Indian CEO and co-founder, Aravind Srinivas. Srinivas, who appears frequently in headlines and discussions, is considered one of the top talents in the space of AI and is counted to be among the most influential figures in the AI space.
Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, on June 7, 1994, Srinivas has built an extraordinary career that blends top-tier academic excellence, groundbreaking research at leading AI labs, and entrepreneurial success, culminating in Perplexity AI’s rapid rise as a major challenger to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Aravind Srinivas: A peek into his early life and education
Srinivas grew up in a middle-class Indian family and was inspired by his mother to aim for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, just like most households. He secured a strong rank in the IIT-JEE examination (980 unreserved) and earned dual degrees (B.Tech and M.Tech) in Electrical Engineering in 2017. Srinivas was self-taught in Python and passionate about AI.
He excelled in machine-learning competitions, interned with deep-learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio, and received prestigious scholarships, including the National Talent Search Scholarship (Government of India), Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (Department of Science and Technology), Indian National Mathematics Olympiad Merit Award, and the Viterbi India Fellowship from the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum.
In 2017, Srinivas moved to the United States to pursue a PhD in Computer Science (with a focus on AI, reinforcement learning, generative models, and representation learning) at the University of California, Berkeley, which is one of the world’s premier AI research institutions.
Srinivas’ research career at top AI labs
His professional journey accelerated with research scientist roles at the top AI organisations like DeepMind (Google-owned, London), Google (Mountain View, contributing to projects like HaloNet and ResNet-RS in computer vision and machine learning), and OpenAI (where he worked on initiatives including DALL·E 2). These experiences in cutting-edge generative AI and large-scale models gave him deep insights into the limitations of existing search and information tools.
Founding Perplexity AI and achieving global recognition
In August 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. As CEO, he has steered the company to redefine online search as an “answer engine” — a conversational AI that delivers precise, cited, fact-checkable responses instead of traditional link lists, combining web search with advanced language models for transparency and reliability.
Under Srinivas’s leadership, Perplexity has achieved explosive growth, raising over $165 million (and later larger rounds, including a $500 million round in 2025), reaching a valuation of up to $18 billion by late 2025. The company also partnered with Bharti Airtel in India to offer free Perplexity Pro access to millions, and launched innovations like Comet (a voice-based AI browser). The platform now serves millions of users seeking trustworthy, source-backed answers.
Despite interest from big tech for acquisition, Srinivas has emphasised keeping Perplexity independent, with plans to potentially go public after 2028. His vision centers on transparent, fast, and trustworthy AI-powered knowledge access, where users get direct answers without endless clicking.
Srinivas’ career achievements at a glance
Academic excellence: IIT Madras dual degrees, UC Berkeley PhD in Computer Science.
Early accolades: National Talent Search Scholarship, Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana, Indian National Mathematics Olympiad Merit Award, Viterbi India Fellowship.
Research contributions: Work at DeepMind, Google (HaloNet, ResNet-RS), OpenAI (DALL·E 2 and related generative AI).
Entrepreneurial success: Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI (founded 2022), leading to a multi-billion-dollar valuation and massive user adoption.
Major recognitions: Featured in TIME100 Most Influential People in AI (2024), Perplexity named to Forbes AI 50 list (2024) and Forbes Cloud 100 (2025), received the A1 in Business & Technology award at the Gold Gala (2025).
Historic milestone: Named India’s youngest billionaire on the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025 at age 31, with a net worth of approximately Rs 21,190 crore (around $2.5 billion), symbolising India’s shift toward deep-tech innovation.
