Aravind Srinivas (born 7 June 1994) is an Indian-American computer scientist and entrepreneur, best known as the CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence company specializing in conversational search technologies.
Early life and education.
Srinivas was born in Madras, India, to a Tamil Hindu family. He earned dual degrees (B.Tech and M.Tech) in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He later pursued a PhD in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Career.
During his academic career, Srinivas held research positions at OpenAI, Google Brain, and DeepMind focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
In 2022, he co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. The company developed an AI-powered "answer engine" designed to provide direct, cited responses to user queries, seeking to distinguish itself from traditional search engines.
Under Srinivas's leadership, Perplexity AI has secured significant funding from investors including Jeff Bezos, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, and Nvidia. The company has also announced partnerships aimed at expanding its AI applications into hardware by collaborating with Deutsche Telekom to develop an AI-integrated smartphone.
In 2024, Srinivas stated that he had been waiting for a US green card for nearly three years. In the same year, "Time" magazine named him one of the "TIME100 Most Influential People in AI".