Perplexity AI Could Soon Become Preloaded on Samsung and Motorola Phones

AI startup Perplexity is reportedly in talks with Samsung and Motorola to have its chatbot preloaded on the company’s Android phones, Bloomberg is reporting today. While discussions between Perplexity and Samsung are said to be in the early stages, Motorola could announce a partnership with the startup during a product event in New York City on April 24.

According to the report, Motorola plans to preload Perplexity as an alternative AI assistant to Google Gemini on its phones. Samsung, however, could go a bit further despite its close partnership with Google on AI features.

“The details of the Samsung deal are still being hashed out, the people said. The terms could involve offering Perplexity as a default AI assistant option or preloading the startup’s Android app on phones. Samsung, the worldwide smartphone market leader, also could promote the assistant heavily as an option within the Galaxy Store, where users download apps,” the report reads.

Perplexity, which was founded in 2022, is one of the main US-based AI startups competing with OpenAI alongside Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. Unlike other AI chatbots, however, Perplexity uses its own models plus competing models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Deepseek to provide its answers.

As of today, both Motorola and Samsung are developing their own AI features for their Android phones. Motorola recently launched moto ai in beta, while Samsung has a “Galaxy AI” set of generative AI features in addition to its Bixby assistant.

However, many of the AI features on recent Galaxy phones rely on Google Gemini, and Samsung may have a good reason to look for alternatives. Following a first investment in the AI startup last year, Bloomberg reports that Samsung could participate in another $500M to $1B funding round that could make Perplexity reach a $18 billion valuation.