Tripadvisor's New Partnership With ChatGPT-Competitor Perplexity

Tripadvisor has begun a trial to power some travel-related answers on the AI search engine Perplexity. 

Perplexity is a startup competitor to platforms like ChatGPT. The company last month raised $500 million at a valuation of $9 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg. 

This is Perplexity's first partnership with a travel company, according to a spokesperson. And it's also Tripadvisor's first partnership with an AI search engine, according to Rahul Todkar, head of data and AI for Tripadvisor. 

The partnership focuses on sharing Tripadvisor data that’s largely unavailable to third-party search engines, including information about its users' habits. It also includes Tripadvisor links to hotels, restaurants, and Viator experiences, as well as AI-generated summaries of user reviews for those businesses.

The data sharing is meant to help Perplexity's AI ge