Perplexity acquires Carbon to connect AI search to your work files

Perplexity acquired a small Seattle-based startup called Carbon which specializes in connecting AI systems to external data sources, the companies announced on Wednesday. CEO Aravind Srinivasan says this will allow Perplexity to search through your files and work messages in Notion, Google Docs, Slack, and other enterprise applications sometime in early 2025.

Carbon specializes in retrieval augmented generation, or RAG, which allows large language models to access information from external databases before it generates an answer. By bringing Carbon’s technology and staff on board, Perplexity could be opening the door to launching enterprise search products. These tools connect generative AI to enterprise databases, allowing employees to quickly search through the mass of unstructured data their companies have acquired over the years.

“Carbon will make it easier for Perplexity’s answer engine to be informed by diverse sources of information, whether that data resides in internal databases, cloud storage, or document repositories,” said Perplexity in a statement.

Enterprise AI search is quickly becoming a competitive space in the AI world. OpenAI reportedly told investors in its latest $6.6 billion round that they could not also invest in Glean, the current front runner in enterprise search. Glean has reportedly inspired OpenAI, Google, and several other AI giants to develop their own enterprise search products – and perhaps they’ve inspired Perplexity as well.

This is Perplexity’s second acquisition, following its 2023 acquisition of Spellwise, whose CEO was brought on to develop Perplexity’s mobile app.