Perplexity, the artificial intelligence search startup, has entered into a three-year agreement with Microsoft Corporation to use Azure infrastructure, committing $750 million to the arrangement, according to people familiar with the matter. The contract will allow Perplexity to deploy frontier models through Microsoft’s Foundry service.
The pact signals Microsoft’s strategy to make Azure a central destination for a broad set of AI applications. By hosting models from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, Microsoft is presenting Azure as a go-to environment for startups that need access to cutting-edge model capabilities.
Perplexity’s expansion into Microsoft’s cloud comes as the company is engaged in a federal lawsuit with Amazon.com Inc. That legal action, filed by Amazon in November, seeks to stop Perplexity from using AI agents to carry out automated purchases on Amazon’s marketplace. The dispute centers on Perplexity’s shopping agent, known as "Comet," which Amazon contends breaches its terms of service by acting as if it were a human user when completing transactions.
"AWS remains Perplexity’s preferred cloud infrastructure provider, and we’re excited to announce expansions of that partnership in the coming weeks," a Perplexity spokesperson said, indicating that the startup still views Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud partner for now.
Perplexity also commented on the Microsoft agreement: "We are excited to partner with Microsoft for access to frontier models from X, OpenAI and Anthropic," a spokesperson said. The addition of Foundry gives the startup operational redundancy as it scales services that include advanced search and so-called "agentic commerce" features.
Perplexity faces pressure to grow its infrastructure quickly. The company was valued at roughly $20 billion as of September 2025, and while it has raised substantial capital, it remains smaller than competitors with larger funding reserves such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Leveraging Microsoft’s Foundry as a secondary engine is intended to support rapid scaling without relying solely on a single cloud provider.
The Microsoft tie-up underscores a broader industry trend of AI companies diversifying cloud dependencies to sustain growth and secure access to varied model capabilities. For Perplexity, the deal both broadens technical options and provides a buffer against cloud-provider disputes.
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