Key takeaways
- Perplexity partners with SoftBank to launch Enterprise Pro for Japanese corporate customers.
- SoftBank becomes the first authorized reseller, leveraging its 7,000-member sales team.
- The collaboration aims to enhance productivity for Japanese enterprises through AI-driven search.
- Existing alliance with SoftBank and other partners dates back to June 2024 for individual users.
- Perplexity targets expansion in Japan's large economy, joining over 7,000 global organizations.
AI search engine Perplexity has partnered with Japanese investment firm SoftBank to launch Perplexity Enterprise Pro for corporate customers in Japan.
With this, SoftBank becomes the first authorised reseller, helping expand Perplexity's reach in Japan's corporate market.
According to the company’s blog post, the partnership utilises SoftBank's 7,000-member enterprise sales team to target Japanese companies. SoftBank’s established presence provides an opportunity to penetrate one of the world’s largest economies.
SoftBank has already tested the product internally, confirming its ability to improve productivity for Japanese enterprises.
This collaboration builds on an existing alliance between Perplexity, SoftBank, Y!Mobile, and LINEMO, which began in June 2024 with a free trial of Perplexity Pro for individual customers.
SoftBank’s relationships across various industries, including finance, manufacturing, healthcare, and technology, help Perplexity overcome market entry barriers.
With Perplexity Enterprise Pro, Japanese businesses can leverage AI-driven search to transform how teams access and use information. They will join over 7,000 global organisations using the platform.
With 15 million users, Perplexity has been on a shipping spree recently.
The company released a Windows app, added MCP support for real-time data.
Perplexity’s latest release, the Perplexity Windows app, is now available.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, has partnered with Perplexity AI to create a next-generation AI Phone. Running on a custom Magenta AI operating system, it will feature Perplexity Assistant.
The company also open-sourced R1 1776, a version of the DeepSeek-R1 language model that has been post-trained to eliminate censorship and provide factual responses.
