Perplexity

Key Findings

• Economic: Perplexity is a Delaware-incorporated, San Francisco-based AI-search software company; reviewed materials identify no Israeli office, subsidiary, government contract, revenue, tax payment, or settlement-linked activity.^{1, 2, 3}
• Digital: Perplexity runs services on AWS and a reported DoiT customer reference exists, but neither establishes Israeli data processing, infrastructure, deployment, or an Israeli-state technology relationship.^{4, 5}
• Political: A reported Israeli government-linked effort to influence chatbot responses remains unresolved as to Perplexity; available records do not establish that Perplexity was a contractor, participant, recipient of funds, or collaborator.^{6, 7}
• Not found: No public evidence identified of Perplexity contracts, products, deployments, or supply-chain relationships involving Israeli military, intelligence, security, settlement, or government bodies in the reviewed materials.^{8, 9, 10}

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Perplexity’s consumer terms identify Perplexity AI, Inc. as the service provider for its websites, answer engine, mobile application, and related consumer services.¹⁷
• The company’s reviewed public disclosures do not provide a current complete board roster, shareholder register, comprehensive subsidiary list, or country-level revenue and workforce data.^{14, 18}

Executive Summary

Perplexity AI, Inc. is a U.S. AI-search and software-services company. The reviewed record documents its consumer and enterprise products, U.S. government offerings, cloud infrastructure, and venture financing, but does not document an Israeli operating company, office, registered branch, tax registration, Israeli government procurement award, Israeli public-sector deployment, or settlement-based operation.^{2, 3, 4, 10, 17}

The clearest Israel-related material is limited and does not establish complicity. Perplexity maintains Hebrew-localized corporate and product content. An Israeli Ministry of Innovation event report referred to Perplexity as a web-research/search tool and mentioned free Pro queries, but did not identify Perplexity as a supplier, contractor, licensee, deployed platform, or paid beneficiary.¹⁶ Separately, an August 2026 report described DoiT - characterized in that report as an Israeli-American company founded in Israel - as listing Perplexity among more than 4,500 customers. That report does not establish what product DoiT used, the commercial terms, deployment scope, data-processing role, duration, current status, or any Israeli infrastructure or personnel involvement.⁵

Perplexity’s AWS case study establishes that it built its service on AWS, runs models there, and offers Claude through Amazon Bedrock. However, the case study does not identify AWS regions, data residency, routing, storage locations, subcontractors, or Israeli-jurisdiction exposure for prompts or stored data.⁴ No public evidence identified that Perplexity operates a data centre in Israel, participates in Project Nimbus, provides sovereign-cloud services to Israeli institutions, or supplies AI, analytics, targeting, surveillance, or cyber capabilities to Israeli state, military, intelligence, or security bodies.^{4, 8, 9}

The audits also considered claims concerning a purported Israeli-government-backed communications effort intended to influence chatbot results. The available FARA record corroborates Clock Tower X LLC’s registration for the State of Israel, but does not name Perplexity as a contractor, client, supplier, recipient of funds, or participant. External reporting and an incident-database entry do not establish Perplexity’s knowledge of, agreement with, or participation in the reported effort; the issue remains unresolved.^{6, 7}

On the fixed, human-vetted V6.5 evidence record, all four domain scores are zero. The resulting BRS is 0, placing Perplexity in Tier E (Minimal/No Complicity). This result is not a finding that all possible commercial relationships are impossible; it reflects the absence of verified, scoreable nexus evidence in the reviewed materials and the requirement not to convert document-scoped absences or unresolved leads into affirmative allegations.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

The verified operating entity is Perplexity AI, Inc. Its terms attribute the consumer-facing websites, answer engine, mobile application, and related services to that entity, while noting that API and Enterprise offerings are governed by separate terms.¹⁷ The April 2023 Form D records Perplexity AI, Inc. as a Delaware corporation and identifies its San Francisco address at that time.¹

The reviewed record identifies the company’s founding team as Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski.¹¹ Its disclosed investment history includes seed financing, Series A and Series B rounds, a subsequent Daniel Gross-led investment, SK Telecom’s minority investment, and other named investors. These disclosures are incomplete ownership snapshots: they do not establish controlling status, current shareholdings, voting rights, private beneficial ownership, or an Israeli controlling interest.^{13, 14, 20}

Perplexity’s privacy materials refer collectively to “Perplexity AI, Inc. and its affiliates,” but the surfaced text does not name those affiliates, their jurisdictions, ownership, or functions.¹⁸ A separate UK Companies House filing history exists for Perplexity AI Ltd, but the reviewed material does not establish its operational relationship to Perplexity AI, Inc.²¹ No public evidence identified of an Israeli parent, subsidiary, franchisee, licensee, registered branch, R&D centre, engineering office, sales office, support centre, warehouse, retail location, or settlement-based facility.^{2, 3, 5}

Perplexity announced its acquisition of Visual Electric in October 2025. The reviewed account did not establish that Visual Electric was Israeli-domiciled, operated in Israel or occupied territory, or had an Israeli military, defence, settlement, or critical-infrastructure nexus.²²

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of a Perplexity contract, tender award, framework agreement, memorandum of understanding, or service deployment with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, Israel Prison Service, Border Police, intelligence bodies, or another Israeli security entity.^{8, 9, 23}

Perplexity’s Secure Intelligence Institute is described as research into security, privacy, safety, and practical defence of frontier AI systems. The announcement does not identify a tactical product, Israeli customer, security end user, targeting output, kinetic application, or weapons effect.²⁴ No public evidence identified that Perplexity manufactures, integrates, maintains, or supplies weapons, munitions, missile defence, fire control, targeting, guidance, strategic defence platforms, or related critical subsystems for Israeli forces.^{1, 9, 24}

No public evidence identified of Perplexity supplying Israeli defence primes such as Elbit, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael, or IMI/Elbit Land; providing logistical sustainment to Israeli military facilities; or supplying construction, maintenance, engineering, or logistics for settlements, checkpoints, the separation barrier, demolitions, or military infrastructure.^{8, 9, 25}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest defence is the civilian character of the documented product: Perplexity is presented in reviewed disclosures as an AI-search and software service, not a defence contractor or weapons manufacturer.^{12, 17} Its security-related initiative is framed as general frontier-AI security research, and its SEC filing identifies an “Other Technology” issuer rather than a weapons-related business line.^{1, 24}

The absence findings are bounded. They concern the official, company, filing, media-investigation, UN, NGO, and database materials reviewed; they do not prove that no unpublicized relationship could exist. In particular, database and civil-society checks are document-specific rather than exhaustive ecosystem-wide searches.²⁵

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Perplexity AI, Inc.: No verified Israeli defence or security procurement, supply-chain, or tactical-product nexus identified.^{8, 9}
• Israeli Ministry of Defense / IDF: Reviewed MOD materials do not name Perplexity as a supplier, partner, or participant.^{8, 23}
• Elbit, IAI, Rafael, IMI/Elbit Land: No public evidence identified of Perplexity supply, co-development, or technology-transfer arrangements.⁹
• AFSC, OHCHR, PAX, Al-Haq: Perplexity was not named in specified checked materials; these are source-scoped absence findings.²⁵

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Perplexity states that it built Perplexity AI on AWS, runs its own models there, and offers Claude through Amazon Bedrock.⁴ This is a documented cloud-infrastructure relationship, but it does not establish Israeli-region processing, Israeli data residency, or participation in Israeli government cloud programmes.

The only identified Israeli-linked commercial lead is CTech’s report that DoiT, described there as Israeli-American and founded in Israel, lists Perplexity among more than 4,500 customers.⁵ The reference does not establish service type, contract date or value, deployment scope, processing role, duration, status, or whether Israeli personnel or infrastructure were involved.

No public evidence identified of Perplexity operating or leasing Israeli data centres; participating in Project Nimbus; integrating with named Israeli-origin cyber or surveillance vendors; or providing AI, ML, computer vision, autonomous decision support, target generation, intelligence, offensive cyber, or surveillance systems to Israeli state actors.^{4, 5, 8, 9}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The AWS case study confirms infrastructure use but does not disclose regions, availability zones, routing, retention, legal-access arrangements, storage location, or cross-border data flows.⁴ Therefore, neither Israeli-jurisdiction exposure for user data nor its absence can be established from that record.

Claims relating to a reported Israeli government-linked influence campaign should not be hardened into a Perplexity relationship. The FARA record identifies Clock Tower X LLC’s foreign-principal relationship, but does not identify Perplexity’s participation, payment, deployment, model access, training-data access, or service provision.⁶ The reported episode remains unresolved.⁷

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• AWS / Amazon Bedrock: Documented host and model-access relationship; no Israel-specific infrastructure detail disclosed.⁴
• DoiT: Reported customer reference only; scope and relevance to Israel remain unverified.⁵
• Clock Tower X LLC / State of Israel: FARA registration is documented, but it does not name Perplexity in the relationship.⁶
• Project Nimbus and Israeli security bodies: No public evidence identified of Perplexity participation or deployment.^{8, 9}

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

Perplexity’s reviewed product model is a software-service supply chain, not agricultural or physical-goods sourcing. No public evidence identified of Israeli agricultural suppliers, imported goods, white-label products, settlement-origin goods, customs or labelling findings, Israeli real estate, logistics facilities, lending, insurance, underwriting, Israel-focused funds, Israeli sovereign bonds, or Israeli defence-manufacturer holdings.^{3, 12, 14}

Hebrew-localized corporate content indicates Israeli-facing accessibility but does not establish an Israeli legal entity, workforce, tax registration, physical presence, revenue stream, or procurement relationship.³ The September 2025 Israeli government event reference evidences public discussion of Perplexity as a research-tool example, not a contract, paid deployment, licence, data transfer, or public procurement outcome.¹⁶

No public evidence identified of Israeli revenue, profits, tax payments, profit repatriation, Israeli operating subsidiary, state incentive, Israel Innovation Authority award, Israeli market characterization, or a verified Israeli public-sector, military, settlement, or critical-infrastructure contract.^{3, 8, 9}

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest defence is that the documented business is digital AI-search and software services, not a physical-goods or Israel-based operating business.¹² The record does not support treating Hebrew localization, workshop mention, or a customer-list reference as evidence of Israeli commercial operations or state procurement.^{3, 5, 16}

Public corporate information is incomplete. Financing announcements do not provide a full cap table, voting arrangements, current beneficial owners, comprehensive subsidiary list, or Israel-attributed financial disclosures. Accordingly, the absence of verified Israeli ownership or revenue is not proof that every indirect economic connection is impossible.^{14, 18}

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Perplexity AI, Inc.: Delaware issuer and software-services provider; no verified Israeli operating entity or economic contribution identified.^{1, 3}
• SK Telecom: Reported $10 million investment; no ownership percentage disclosed and no Israeli nexus established by that investment.²⁰
• DoiT: Reported as a Perplexity customer, not an established Perplexity Israeli distributor, reseller, or operating entity.⁵
• Israeli Ministry of Innovation event: Tool reference without documented procurement, deployment, or payment.¹⁶

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of a supportable Perplexity corporate statement on Israel, Palestine, Gaza, occupation, Palestinian rights, the ICJ advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, or ICC warrants of November 2024 in the reviewed record.²⁶ Perplexity’s Hebrew-language search page does not state a conflict-specific political, editorial, or moderation position.²⁶

No public evidence identified of Israeli state, military, settlement, security-sector, public-relations, lobbying, anti-BDS, PAC, FIDF, JNF/KKL, or comparable advocacy partnerships, donations, credits, logistics, or infrastructure support involving Perplexity.^{10, 27} Nor did reviewed sources establish conflict-specific asymmetric moderation, workplace discipline, litigation, or policy enforcement involving pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel expression.²⁸

A 2026 corporate disclosure statement represents that Perplexity has no parent corporation and no publicly held corporation owning more than 10% of its stock. It does not identify private holders, beneficial owners, voting arrangements, subsidiaries, or ownership by non-public entities.²⁹

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest defence is that reviewed public communications concern U.S. federal-government offerings, not Israeli state activity. Perplexity’s GSA arrangement and public government materials identify U.S. federal agencies and public-safety organizations rather than Israeli customers.^{10, 30}

Absence findings are limited by available records. Failed focused searches for lobbying, PAC, political-contribution, foundation, and founder-role leads do not establish that founders made no political contributions or that no undisclosed philanthropic activity exists.²⁷ Likewise, document-level NGO and UN scans do not establish absence from every public record, customer relationship, or future publication.²⁵

Named Entities and Evidence Map

• Perplexity AI, Inc.: No verified conflict-specific corporate stance, lobbying, donation, or state partnership identified.^{26, 27}
• U.S. GSA / OneGov: Documented U.S. federal arrangement, not evidence of Israeli government, military, or security activity.^{10, 30}
• Clock Tower X LLC: Registered for the State of Israel, but the reviewed FARA record does not name Perplexity.⁶
• Founders: No supportable primary record located in reviewed materials tying the four identified founders to Israel/Palestine-related advocacy, funding, or Israeli defence-sector investment.^{11, 27}

BDS-1000 Score

Method: V6.5

• V_MAX: 0.00 Avg_OTHERS: 0.00
• BRS Score: 0 Tier: E (Minimal/No Complicity)

V_MAX is 0.00 because no reviewed evidence establishes a scoreable military, digital, economic, or political nexus to Israeli state, military, security, settlement, or occupied-territory activity. The remaining domain average is also 0.00; therefore the fixed human-vetted result is Tier E. V6.5 is scale-free, evidence-only, and does not infer involvement from unresolved allegations, localization, generic availability, incomplete corporate disclosures, or transitive associations.

Methodology Note

• Evidence is limited to the four supplied domain audits and the sources they identify; claims are included only where those audits support them.
• Impact (I) assesses the documented activity type, Magnitude (M) assesses scale, and Proximity (P) assesses directness; scores are not based on company size, reputation, or political inference.
• The assessment is scale-free and human-vetted. Allegations that were fabricated, unverified, attributed to the wrong entity, or unsupported by a primary record are not converted into scoreable claims.
• Divested, exited, or otherwise discontinued operations mitigate assessment where documented; no such verified Israel-linked operation was identified here.
• Entity attribution is direct: a customer reference, investor, cloud provider, or third-party campaign does not establish company responsibility without evidence connecting Perplexity itself to the relevant conduct.
• Settlement operation, if evidenced, would be assessed across both Economic and Political. “No public evidence identified” denotes the result of the specified checks, not universal proof of absence.