PayPal and Perplexity Just Gave AI Access to Your Wallet… What Could Go Wrong?

If Google Search and ChatGPT had a baby (and raised it on Zyn, high-end GPUs, and venture capital) its name would be Perplexity. And like any startup baby born into Silicon Valley privilege, it’s growing very fast. So fast, in fact, that it's in talks to raise another $500 million… at a $14 billion valuation. (Down from their original “we’re worth $18B just because” target, but hey… still more than Replit, Jasper, and Stability AI combined.)

But now, Perplexity is tired of answering late-night questions like “best carry-on for under $100” or “why does my dog eat mulch.” It now wants to buy things for you too. Yes. Perplexity just announced a deal with PayPal to bring shopping directly into the chat. You ask a question. It finds the product. You buy it. All inside the chatbot. Like some futuristic AI concierge with access to your wallet.

PayPal will handle all the backend… processing payments, filling in your shipping details, tracking packages, and even dealing with the angry emails when your concert tickets never arrive. Oh, and you can use Venmo too, just in case you want your impulse buys to be social.

“The next generation of commerce is happening on the agentic side,” said PayPal tech chief Srini Venkatesan. He’s referring to bots that do way more than search… they buy, book, and bill you, without ever asking permission. It’s called “agentic commerce.” Which basically means: your AI assistant just became your mom, your assistant, and your personal shopper… all rolled into one. And yes, that’s as convenient as it is terrifying.

Perplexity says it wants to be “wherever people are asking questions and making decisions,” which is a nice way of saying: We want to live inside your head, and also your Amazon cart. If you can recall, this isn’t their first flirtation with e-commerce either. They dipped their toes in last year with a Shopify integration, letting premium users browse shopping suggestions. But this is different. This is a full-blown charge into “chat-to-checkout,” something even OpenAI hasn’t rolled out yet.

And in case you’re wondering who’s helping fund all this chaos: Nvidia. Of course. Jensen Huang’s chip empire is practically underwriting the entire AI revolution at this point. Meanwhile, PayPal is coming in hot after shaking off an SEC investigation, which had been one of the few things keeping its stock in the penalty box. This month, shares are up nearly 10%, and the company’s now throwing its weight behind AI integrations, blockchain payments, and (you guessed it) its very own stablecoin. I will never understand the value behind stablecoins, but that’s another topic for another day.

Oh, and did we mention Will Ferrell is now doing PayPal commercials? Yeah. That’s real. And honestly? They’re kind of great. If anyone can sell the idea of trusting a bot to buy your plane tickets, it’s the guy who played Buddy the Elf and Ron Burgundy.

PS: It’s a mess out there.

One day the market’s ripping, the next day it’s Black Monday all over again. Recent earning’s reports have been a total coin flip. One stock beats and explodes 30%… the next misses by a penny and gets sent to the Shadow Realm. And through it all, everyone’s begging for Jerome Powell to finally cave and cut rates.

But underneath all the panic headlines (“Inflation too sticky!” “Recession imminent!” “Tariffs round 4 incoming!”) something wild is happening…

We’re seeing violent price action. Especially in the small-cap space, where low floats and high anxiety are creating the perfect recipe for 100%+ pops before lunchtime. Some of these names are moving 200%+ in under 24 hours… and to our knowledge, NO ONE else is covering them.

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Stock.News has positions in Google and Amazon.