3 months ago
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Aravind Srinivas, CEO of AI-powered search engine Perplexity, recently met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital. In a post on X, Srinivas said, “We had a great conversation about the potential for AI adoption in India and across the world.”
Srinivas added that he was greatly inspired by the PM’s dedication to stay updated on the topic and his vision for the future.
While the company is valued at $9 billion and headquartered in San Francisco, Srinivas continues to hold Indian citizenship.
Moreover, there have been several debates about whether H1B and Green Cards should be more readily issued to immigrants in the United States.
When Srinivas met PM Modi, many on social media expressed hopes that the former would consider shifting Perplexity’s base to India.
That said, Srinivas hasn’t shied from displaying his love for his homeland.
‘I think we need a Perplexity India’
Discussions over the expansion of Perplexity to India didn’t start just yesterday. Last month, Srinivas on X said that “Perplexity India will happen”.
A few weeks ago, the Indian government announced a subscription to 13,000 academic journals, making them accessible to 18 million students, faculty and researchers.
Making an offer to PM Modi, Srinivas had said, “I would be down to figuring out an economic structure where all Indian students, faculty, and researchers can get Perplexity Pro.”
Besides that, he hasn’t revealed any plans for the company in India. AIM reached out to Perplexity regarding the same and the intent behind Srinivas’ meeting with the PM but could not elicit a response.
That said, it would be truly ideal if Srinivas could build a version of Perplexity specifically tailored for India. If adapted to India’s unique challenges, Perplexity could significantly improve the quality of life for millions.
For one, accessing information from Indian websites is a painful task. Generally, one can find information hidden deep inside menus and navigation bars, with poor readability and, often, too much complexity. If Perplexity can build a solution that provides the latest information from government websites upon prompts, there’s nothing like it.
The Indian government recommends using the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards when designing a website’s user interface. These internationally recognised standards ensure digital content is accessible to all users and provide a framework for enhancing the user experience.
However, the recommendation contradicts reality. A study of 65 e-government websites found that the majority of them fail to meet the set standards. The figure below describes all the checkpoints these websites violated.
For instance, the report revealed that several websites feature text and background colours with inadequate contrast, which makes them difficult to read.
Moreover, multiple websites failed to provide adequate information about the layout, table of contents, or sitemap.
“Some groups may find it impossible or even difficult to access information on the Indian e-government websites. Thus, the results reveal that accessibility features have not been given due attention during the design and development of e-government sites,” the report read.
The Average Indian Cannot Skim Through Government Documents
AIM spoke to Mandeep Gill, co-founder of Labour Law Advisor, a platform that educates over 50 lakh subscribers on India’s laws, policies, and citizen rights, who cited the discovery of these documents as another problem.
“When you search on Google, the actual details of the law are never found on the first page, and we see a lot of news articles instead…The problem with this is that we’ve to take the word of these news articles and five different articles to provide five different sets of information.”
He also revealed a personal experience where several media outlets reported a ceiling on the Employees Pension Scheme, but after finding the actual document and the law, he found that no such law clause existed.
“The whole country believed that there can’t be a pension higher than ₹7,000, but actually, there’s nothing like that in the law,” Gill added. Problems like these can have major repercussions.
Having said that, Perplexity can also immensely help digest the contents of a government document. Most original documents aren’t written in a way the average Indian can understand.
“So, you either have to be a law student, or you must know how to read actual laws. Sometimes it could be a 400-page law, and you are only finding a needle in a haystack. Skimming through the pages requires some sort of experience to get what you need, and it’s not easy for a common person,” Gill further said.
Srinivas can get Perplexity to solve these problems in India. However, he himself is fighting a different set of problems.
Is 2025 the Year Srinivas Gets His Green Card?
Srinivas has yet to get his green card, officially known as a permanent resident card, in the US. A few weeks ago, in a post on X, he said, “I think I should get a green card. What do you think?” To this, xAI founder Elon Musk, who will soon head US President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), responded, “Yes.”
In October, while expressing frustration over the difficulty of immigrating to the US, Srinivas said, “I have been waiting for my green card for the last three years. I still haven’t gotten it.” Moreover, he added that it took more than five years for him to seek permission to leave the US and step back in.
He also expressed optimism about the new regime in the US. “Excited for Elon and Vivek [Ramaswamy] to make legal immigration better. I would even push for a higher application fee (e.g. 2x) in exchange for high-quality fast service,” Srinivas said in a post on X.
Sriram Krishnan, who is set to take charge as the senior policy advisor on AI at the White House, wrote on X, “Anything to remove country caps for green cards [permanent resident card] or unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
Even Trump, right before the election results, appeared in a podcast episode and said, “I think you should automatically get a green card as part of your diploma to be able to stay in this country.”
Does this mean Srinivas will finally receive his green card? Or should he head back home?
“Why struggle for a green card, Aravind? Come back to India! Grow Perplexity from here,” said journalist Vikram Chandra on X. Following this, Deedy Das, Indian-origin venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures, said that it is a question that needs to be asked to India instead.
However, all things considered, if Perplexity were to expand in India, it wouldn’t be free from challenges.
