Could Perplexity's new AI shopping tool becoming available on Shopify (SHOP.US) be the biggest winner?

In the field of AI search, leading platform Perplexity announced the launch of a new AI tool designed specifically for consumer search and purchase of desired products, attracting investor attention once again after Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify (SHOP.US) reported strong Q3 performance. Perplexity stated that paid subscribers of Perplexity Pro in the US market will be able to experience a new AI e-commerce experience called "Buy with Pro", which allows them to quickly access product information and market analysis they want to purchase using AI search on the Perplexity website or application, and seamlessly view specific products from specific merchants, meaning that Shopify merchants' products will be listed in bulk in Perplexity's new AI shopping tool. Perplexity stated that after a positive reception in the US, it plans to expand its AI shopping assistant to new markets. While the new AI tool may attract more consumers to leave search engine competitors like Alphabet Inc. Class C and e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. in terms of diversified click purchases, the impact on Shopify, focusing on building an all-in-one e-commerce platform, may be different from Amazon.com, Inc. Shopify may be the biggest beneficiary of Perplexity's shopping AI tool. Shopify's open e-commerce ecosystem is naturally compatible with Perplexity AI's model, avoiding privacy restrictions or agreement barriers for data scraping as seen on exclusive platforms like Amazon.com, Inc. The new Perplexity tool will gather information from seller websites globally, including "mom-and-pop" e-commerce websites or official online retail websites of large brands built and hosted on the Shopify all-in-one platform. These websites, built independently by merchants on the Shopify open e-commerce ecosystem, have much looser privacy regulations and crawling restrictions, unlike merchants on Amazon.com, Inc., who may not be covered by widespread AI shopping tools like Perplexity due to Amazon.com, Inc.'s platform privacy regulations and anti-crawling mechanisms. Data on consumer spending shows that consumer spending levels in Europe and the United States remain very strong ahead of this year's Black Friday to Cyber Monday online shopping frenzy. One of Amazon.com, Inc.'s biggest competitors, Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify, reported better-than-expected earnings, with total revenue growing approximately 26% to $21.6 billion in the third quarter, higher than analysts' average expectation of $21.2 billion. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter that the e-commerce company has seen revenue growth of over 25% (excluding logistics). More importantly, in the third quarter, Shopify's gross merchandise volume (GMV) reached $69.7 billion, a 24% year-over-year increase, exceeding analysts' general expectation of $67.8 billion, indicating that online consumer spending remains very strong. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Shopify management predicts total revenue growth of 25%-29%, with analysts generally expecting around 23%. "We also invite merchants to partner with us to bring their products to Perplexity Shopping for product recommendations and the Buy with Pro experience," wrote Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Perplexity AI was founded in 2022 by a team of experienced AI engineers and researchers. The San Francisco-based AI startup's mission is to "satisfy the world's curiosity" by providing an innovative and efficient online search and information retrieval method based on AI large models. Perplexity's first product, Bird SQL, was released in December 2022, utilizing OpenAI's Codex to convert natural language into SQL queries for searching the Twitter database. In January 2023, Perplexity launched its core product - a conversational "AI search" platform that combines internet search engine functions with AI large models for summaries and citations. Dubbed the "Alphabet Inc. Class C killer", Perplexity surprisingly became NVIDIA Corporation CEO Jensen Huang's favorite AI tool. When asked in an interview this year if he frequently uses ChatGPT or Alphabet Inc. Class C AI chat Siasun Robot&Automation, or if he uses other products, Huang replied, "I usually use Perplexity, and I use it almost every day. For example, when I recently wanted to understand how AI assists in drug development, I used Perplexity for relevant searches." The core difference between Perplexity and other AI chat Siasun Robot&Automation lies in its ability to provide more real-time information and an ad-free AI search operation interface deeply integrated with AI technology. While its main service is AI search, this startup company calls itself an "answer engine" because it provides refined search results in a textual format integrated by AI large models, listing in detail the links on which the search results are based, unlike Alphabet Inc. Class C search engines that only display the links found in the search."Je suis dsol, je ne parle pas anglais. Pouvez-vous rpter cela en franais s'il vous plat?" "I'm sorry, I don't speak English. Can you repeat that in French please?""S, entiendo lo que quieres decir." "Yes, I understand what you mean."