Perplexity has primarily positioned itself as an alternative choice to Google Search, providing numerous AI-powered instruments to look the net. Nevertheless, the platform has recently shifted its focus in the direction of integrating AI-powered options associated to finance.
CEO Aravind Srinivas has incessantly described Perplexity as a “commoditised model of Bloomberg Terminal” and acknowledged that he’s constructing a “Bloomberg Terminal for the lots”.
Perplexity affords finance-focused options, together with a inventory screener for filtering investments, earnings name transcript technology for publicly traded firms, complete firm profile creation, and a dwell dashboard displaying real-time inventory knowledge, market summaries, and upcoming earnings bulletins.
Lately, the platform additionally launched a characteristic that lets customers pull knowledge from SEC filings and use instruments to derive insights from associated paperwork.
For context, Bloomberg Terminal is a complete platform that gives real-time monetary knowledge, information, analytics and buying and selling instruments inside a single, unified interface. It immediately hyperlinks to main sources and international exchanges, drawing data from filings, newsrooms, banks, brokers, and different trusted sources.
Nevertheless, it comes with a steep annual price of round $30,000. In distinction, Perplexity affords limitless entry to its finance options on its platform for simply $20 per thirty days, making it considerably extra accessible.
That mentioned, the Bloomberg Terminal is broadly recognized for its accuracy and real-time knowledge. With practically 4 a long time of trade presence, it’s typically thought of the gold commonplace instrument amongst professionals.
Whereas numerous social media customers have reported a optimistic expertise with Perplexity’s finance-related options, many consider it’s far-fetched to name it an alternative choice to Bloomberg Terminal.
Furthermore, in stark distinction to his sentiments only a few weeks in the past, even Srinivas acknowledged the identical. “Perhaps it was pointless to place it [Perplexity] in its place, and my understanding of the Terminal was fairly restricted,” he mentioned on X.
So, what prompted this alteration?
What Went Mistaken With Perplexity’s Finance
Put merely, the core challenge was the identical one plaguing many AI platforms right this moment: a scarcity of constant accuracy.
For one, many customers have reported discrepancies in monetary knowledge generated by the platform. CompoundingAI, an AI-enabled platform that provides related options, ran a check evaluating Perplexity’s finance outputs with official firm supply paperwork.
In a single such case research, Perplecity was requested to create a dashboard of associated celebration transactions (RPTs) of Sterlite Applied sciences (STLTECH), a publicly listed optical and digital options firm in India.
In response to the question on a dashboard that Perplexity constructed, CompoundingAI mentioned, “Every part ‘appears’ lovely however knowledge accuracy is lacking large time.”
As an example, it confirmed ₹1,355 crore in RPTs with STL Inc (USA). Nevertheless, SEBI filings for H2 FY24 present that the precise executed worth was solely ₹34.8 crore—the ₹1,355 crore is merely an audit committee-approved cap. Perplexity has reported extra such discrepancies.
Moreover, the dashboard created by Perplexity additionally included fictitious entities and timelines. It lists STL Networks Ltd with ₹1,456 crore in RPTs regardless of the entity being demerged after the reporting window and absent from official filings.
Supply: x.com/compoundingaiin
In one other such occasion, Perplexity gave inaccurate monetary numbers of one other Indian publicly traded firm known as Deepak Fertilisers. “Perplexity skips ₹74,854 lakh of CWIP, ignores ₹39,521 lakh of lease property, and folds them into PPE, overstating it by ₹1,27,134 lakh,” mentioned Compounding AI, whereas declaring many such errors.
Srinivas acknowledged the problem and tagged Jeff Grimes, who heads dwell occasions product at Perplexity, to look into these points.
In addition to inaccuracies, some customers identified that Perplexity doesn’t but have all of the options supplied by the Bloomberg Terminal. “Anybody with actual investing expertise will shortly recognise that it lacks probably the most primary performance vs. Bloomberg,” mentioned a consumer on X.
Having mentioned that, traders who use Bloomberg’s Terminal typically take high-stakes selections utilizing the platform, and often need a excessive return-on-investment. “So it’s straightforward to justify the associated fee to stick with Bloomberg,” mentioned Varun Malhotra, a former program supervisor at Google. “Many have tried up to now and failed because of this.”
It’s astonishing how some consider they will casually displace the Bloomberg Terminal, pushed by a false sense of energy. The fact is, Bloomberg attracts its knowledge immediately from main sources—typically straight from the exchanges, indexes, and the epicenters of economic exercise.…
— Aditya Jalisatgi (@adityajalisatgi) June 13, 2025
Alongside related strains, one other consumer wrote on X, “Corporations that attempt to change Bloomberg misunderstand one necessary elementary: your monetary shoppers are prepared (and succesful) to pay 2x extra if you’re 20% higher than Bloomberg; however few will accept something that’s 20% worse whatever the price.”
‘It Must Be Bulletproof at Math’
It’s broadly accepted that step one in fixing an issue is acknowledging it, and Srinivas has achieved his half.
“It’s uncommon to see folks complaining about issues nearly on daily basis, asking for options and modifications. That’s a sign that you simply’ve shipped one thing good and are on a trajectory to maintain enhancing it,” he mentioned.
Srinivas added that they’ll allocate extra sources to enhancing the platform, particularly its accuracy.
Chamath Palihapitiya, a enterprise capitalist, addressed Srinivas’ feedback and mentioned that the platform wants to enhance on two particular features. “You must begin sourcing the datasets you will have to service this vertical correctly,” mentioned Palihapitiya, including that the platform must be bulletproof in math.
“If you would like this to be taken severely, you may’t have math errors—or simply clear up deterministically and route round fashions,” he additional mentioned.
All issues thought of, Srinivas did appear to discover a silver lining amidst an array of complaints. “What’s objectively resonating with all customers is that finance merchandise cost so much, provide a fairly poor consumer expertise, and lack style,” he mentioned. Extra importantly, he’s made it clear that he intends to deal with these shortcomings quickly.
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