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Perplexity hit 780 million queries

Perplexity hit 780 million queries

Growing over 20% month-over-month

Eddie Yoon
June 05, 2025 • Read time: 6 minutes

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Thursday.

Perplexity hit 780 million queries in May, growing over 20% month-over-month.

CEO Aravind Srinivas said they’re now handling 30 million queries daily, up from just 3,000 on day one in 2022, and could reach 1 billion weekly within a year if growth continues.

Switching gears:

Kling AI is on track to deliver $100 million in sales by February, according to its maker Kuaishou Technology. It brought in more than 100 million yuan ($14 million) per month over April and May.

$100M ARR within 10 months of launch.

Yes, that’s right, Kling was launched in June 2024.

So how good is their latest model?

Watch this 60-second video. It’s a casual dance video, and it’s stunning. As usual, posted on LinkedIn.

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

Recap of Google’s May AI announcements
Including the releases at I/O and Google Marketing Live, news about AI Mode, new capabilities in the Gemini app and their new AI-powered filmmaking tool, Flow.
ElevenLabs introduces Eleven v3
Supporting 70+ languages, multi-speaker dialogue, and audio tags such as [excited], [sighs], [laughing], and [whispers].
Amazon prepares to test humanoid robots for delivering packages
Amazon is developing software for humanoid robots that could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers, The Information reported on Wednesday.
Anthropic’s new AI models for U.S. national security customers
U.S. national security customers may choose to use Anthropic’s AI systems for a wide range of applications from strategic planning and operational support to intelligence analysis and threat assessment.
Perplexity’s new SEC/EDGAR integration
Direct access to comprehensive financial data for all investors, making technical documents instantly understandable.
Google AI Mode’s new data visualizations & graphs for finance queries
Now, you can compare and analyze information over a specific time period and get an interactive graph and comprehensive explanation — custom-built for your question.
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is writing a new musical with AI
“Right now I’m writing a musical, assisted by AI,” Ulvaeus revealed during a talk at SXSW London on Wednesday, describing himself as “three-quarters” through the creative process.
Volvo just invented AI-powered seatbelts
Debuting in the upcoming fully electric Volvo EX60 in 2026, the new safety belt is designed to better protect people by adapting to traffic variations and the person wearing it, thanks to real-time data from the car’s advanced sensors.

The numbers:

Anysphere, maker of AI coding assistant Cursor, raised $900M at a $9.9B valuation.
Crete Professionals Alliance, an accounting platform backed by Thrive Capital, plans to invest over $500M in an AI-driven roll-up of U.S. accounting firms.
Simetrik, an AI reconciliation platform, secured an additional $30M in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, bringing the total to $85M.
Apidia, a Finnish AI-powered fintech, raised a $28M Series B led by Activant.
Skyral, a UK-based startup developing AI-enabled digital twins, raised a $20M Series A led by NOIA Capital.
Thread AI raised $20M in Series A funding to expand its composable AI infrastructure platform, Lemma.
Manex AI, a German startup building autonomous factories, secured a $9M seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and BlueYard Capital.
Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered software testing platform, raised a $9M seed round from Silicon Badia, Jaango Capital, and others.

Thought starters:

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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