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It was ‘Unnecessary’ to Position Perplexity as a Bloomberg Terminal Alternative

ByRicardo

Perplexity has mainly positioned itself as an alternative to Google Search, offering various AI-powered tools to search the web. However, the platform has lately shifted its focus towards integrating AI-powered features related to finance. 

CEO Aravind Srinivas has frequently described Perplexity as a “commoditised version of Bloomberg Terminal” and stated that he’s building a “Bloomberg Terminal for the masses”.

Perplexity offers finance-focused features, including a stock screener for filtering investments, earnings call transcript generation for publicly traded companies, comprehensive company profile creation, and a live dashboard displaying real-time stock data, market summaries, and upcoming earnings announcements. 

Recently, the platform also introduced a feature that lets users pull data from SEC filings and use tools to derive insights from related documents. 

For context, Bloomberg Terminal is a comprehensive platform that provides real-time financial data, news, analytics and trading tools within a single, unified interface. It directly links to primary sources and global exchanges, drawing information from filings, newsrooms, banks, brokers, and other trusted sources. 

However, it comes with a steep annual cost of around $30,000. In contrast, Perplexity offers unlimited access to its finance features on its platform for just $20 per month, making it significantly more accessible. 

That said, the Bloomberg Terminal is widely known for its accuracy and real-time data. With nearly four decades of industry presence, it is often considered the gold standard tool among professionals.

While a large number of social media users have reported a positive experience with Perplexity’s finance-related features, many believe it is far-fetched to call it an alternative to Bloomberg Terminal. 

Moreover, in stark contrast to his sentiments just a few weeks ago, even Srinivas acknowledged the same. “Maybe it was unnecessary to position it [Perplexity] as an alternative, and my understanding of the Terminal was quite limited,” he said on X.

So, what prompted this change? 

What Went Wrong With Perplexity’s Finance 

Put simply, the core issue was the same one plaguing many AI platforms today: a lack of consistent accuracy. 

For one, many users have reported discrepancies in financial data generated by the platform. CompoundingAI, an AI-enabled platform that offers similar features, ran a test comparing Perplexity’s finance outputs with official company source documents.

In one such case study, Perplecity was asked to create a dashboard of related party transactions (RPTs) of Sterlite Technologies (STLTECH), a publicly listed optical and digital solutions company in India. 

In response to the query on a dashboard that Perplexity built, CompoundingAI said, “Everything ‘looks’ beautiful but data accuracy is missing big time.”

For instance, it showed ₹1,355 crore in RPTs with STL Inc (USA). However, SEBI filings for H2 FY24 show that the actual executed value was only ₹34.8 crore—the ₹1,355 crore is merely an audit committee-approved cap. Perplexity has reported more such discrepancies. 

Furthermore, the dashboard created by Perplexity also included fictitious entities and timelines. It lists STL Networks Ltd with ₹1,456 crore in RPTs despite the entity being demerged after the reporting window and absent from official filings.

Source: x.com/compoundingaiin

In another such instance, Perplexity gave inaccurate financial numbers of another Indian publicly traded company called Deepak Fertilisers. “Perplexity skips ₹74,854 lakh of CWIP, ignores ₹39,521 lakh of lease assets, and folds them into PPE, overstating it by ₹1,27,134 lakh,” said Compounding AI, while pointing out many such errors. 

Srinivas acknowledged the issue and tagged Jeff Grimes, who heads live events product at Perplexity, to look into these issues.

Besides inaccuracies, some users pointed out that Perplexity does not yet have all the features offered by the Bloomberg Terminal. “Anyone with real investing experience will quickly recognise that it lacks the most basic functionality vs. Bloomberg,” said a user on X.

Having said that, investors who use Bloomberg’s Terminal often take high-stakes decisions using the platform, and usually desire a high return-on-investment. “So it is easy to justify the cost to stay with Bloomberg,” said Varun Malhotra, a former program manager at Google. “Many have tried in the past and failed for this reason.” 

Along similar lines, another user wrote on X, “Companies that try to replace Bloomberg misunderstand one important fundamental: your financial clients are willing (and capable) to pay 2x more if you are 20% better than Bloomberg; but few will settle for anything that’s 20% worse regardless of the cost.”

‘It Needs to Be Bulletproof at Math’

It’s widely accepted that the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging it, and Srinivas has done his part. 

“It’s rare to see people complaining about things almost every day, asking for features and changes. That’s a signal that you’ve shipped something good and are on a trajectory to keep improving it,” he said.

Srinivas added that they will allocate more resources to improving the platform, especially its accuracy. 

Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist, addressed Srinivas’ comments and said that the platform needs to improve on two specific aspects. “You need to start sourcing the datasets you will need to service this vertical properly,” said Palihapitiya, adding that the platform needs to be bulletproof in math. 

“If you want this to be taken seriously, you can’t have math errors—or just solve deterministically and route around models,” he further said. 

All things considered, Srinivas did seem to find a silver lining amidst an array of complaints. “What is objectively resonating with all users is that finance products charge a lot, offer a pretty poor user experience, and lack taste,” he said. More importantly, he’s made it clear that he intends to address these shortcomings soon. 

The post It was ‘Unnecessary’ to Position Perplexity as a Bloomberg Terminal Alternative appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.

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