Perplexity signs $750Mn Azure deal with Microsoft According to Reports

AI search startup Perplexity has entered into a USD 750 million, three-year cloud services agreement with Microsoft, granting the Nvidia-backed company expanded access to Azure’s AI infrastructure, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Under the deal, Perplexity will be able to run a range of frontier AI models through Microsoft’s Foundry program, including systems developed by OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, according to the report.

According to the report, a Perplexity spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the partnership is aimed at securing access to leading models from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. The spokesperson added that the agreement does not represent a shift away from Amazon Web Services, which remains Perplexity’s primary cloud provider.

The deal underscores Microsoft’s broader strategy to position Azure as the preferred cloud platform for AI-native startups by offering flexible access to multiple model providers, even as it deepens its own commercial relationship with OpenAI. For Perplexity, the agreement provides additional scale and redundancy as it competes in the fast-evolving AI search and answer-engine market, where rivals include OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic-powered applications.

Founded in 2022, Perplexity has gained prominence for its citation-driven AI search interface, positioning itself as an alternative to traditional search engines by combining large language models with real-time web retrieval. The company has attracted significant investor interest amid growing demand for AI-powered information tools with Nvidia among its high-profile backers.

However, Perplexity has also faced legal scrutiny. In 2025, Amazon filed a lawsuit against the startup over its “agentic” shopping feature, alleging that Perplexity’s automation tools improperly accessed Amazon customer accounts and masked automated activity as human browsing, claims that highlighted the mounting regulatory and legal risks facing AI agents that interact directly with consumer platforms.