Perplexity is pressing ahead with plans to go public in 2028, positioning itself as the next major artificial intelligence company likely to tap public markets after the highly anticipated listings of OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX.
Speaking to CNBC, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said the company’s IPO plans remain unchanged regardless of how investors respond to the blockbuster offerings expected over the next two years.
“Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028 so that still remains the case,” Srinivas said.
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His comments provide the clearest indication yet that Perplexity is preparing for a public market debut, even as investors grapple with questions about whether the AI sector’s soaring valuations can be sustained.
The AI industry is entering what could become the most significant wave of technology listings since the dot-com era, with SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI all moving toward public markets. Together, those companies could add several trillion dollars in market capitalization to global equity markets, creating a crucial test of investor enthusiasm for AI-related assets.
SpaceX Seen as the First Major Test
While Perplexity’s IPO remains years away, Srinivas acknowledged that the market’s reception of upcoming AI and technology offerings will shape investor sentiment across the sector.
“I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well, like there is no sugar coating on that. The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator to how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out,” he said.
The statement reflects growing recognition across Silicon Valley that SpaceX’s public debut may serve as a barometer for risk appetite in an era defined by massive capital spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Investors are closely watching whether public markets are willing to support the extraordinary valuations attached to the industry’s leading players. Anthropic was last valued at nearly $1 trillion in private markets, while OpenAI’s valuation has climbed to levels that place it among the world’s most valuable technology companies before even going public.
Despite those concerns, Srinivas remains optimistic.
“I think it’s important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they’re doing well,” he said.
Why Frontier AI Companies Command Premium Valuations
The debate over AI valuations has intensified as companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on chips, data centers, and research. Srinivas argued that companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic deserve their lofty valuations because they remain at the cutting edge of AI development.
“They are on the frontier,” he said.
However, he suggested that their valuations ultimately depend on maintaining a rapid pace of innovation.
“If for six months you don’t see a model capability advance from one of these two companies, then it’s a problem for them.”
Unlike traditional software companies, the valuations of AI developers are increasingly tied to the expectation that each new generation of models will deliver significant leaps in capability. Any prolonged slowdown could trigger investor concerns about whether the enormous investments flowing into AI are generating adequate returns.
For much of the past two years, enterprises raced to adopt generative AI tools with little scrutiny of costs. Now, companies are becoming more selective about where and how they deploy AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently highlighted rising concerns around AI spending, reportedly describing costs as a “huge issue” as businesses evaluate returns on their investments.
According to Srinivas, the next phase of AI adoption will be defined by efficiency rather than indiscriminate spending.
He pointed to a growing phenomenon known as “tokenmaxxing,” where employees maximize the usage of AI tools to demonstrate productivity. But he argued that businesses are becoming more sophisticated.
“People don’t want to just tokenmax, they really want to use whatever model is the best for that particular task,” he said.
That trend could benefit companies like Perplexity, whose platform can draw on multiple AI models and select the most appropriate one based on performance and cost considerations.
Rather than relying exclusively on expensive frontier models, Srinivas expects enterprises to increasingly mix cutting-edge systems with cheaper open-source alternatives.
“If there is an open source model that gets the job done 90% of the time, I’d probably use that if it’s 10 to 20 times cheaper than the frontier model,” he explained.
The shift toward cost-conscious deployment could reshape how enterprises allocate AI budgets over the coming years.
“The future is still awesome for frontier intelligence, but it’s not going to be mindless spending, as we saw in the last few months,” Srinivas said.
Overall, Perplexity’s planned 2028 IPO is seen as another indication of confidence that public markets will continue rewarding companies positioned at the center of the AI revolution. Investors are beginning to focus less on AI hype and more on tangible measures such as model performance, commercialization strategies, infrastructure costs, and long-term profitability.
For now, the immediate focus remains on SpaceX, followed by Anthropic and OpenAI. If those offerings succeed, they could unlock a new era of AI-driven public market activity and pave the way for companies such as Perplexity to follow.