Motorola has announced a strategic alliance with Perplexity AI, which will integrate Perplexity AI’s assistant and answer engine into the latest Razr line, including the Razr 60 Ultra. CNN Business reports that Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas spoke onstage Wednesday during an event held in New York and said;

″Search shouldn’t be about endless links and ads — it should give the user directly what they want, and we think the best way to do that is through an answer engine. Your phone is now an answer machine, personal assistant, and a research agent.”

This partnership represents a significant leap forward in smartphone innovation, as AI is firmly embedded in both the hardware and software of the handsets. Motorola’s goal with this move is to improve the user experience by leveraging powerful on-device intelligence to provide faster, more natural interactions.

AI-Powered Experience in Your Pocket

Motorola has announced a strategic partnership with AI search company Perplexity, being the first smartphone company to fully integrate Perplexity’s technology into its offerings. This comes at the same time as the release of the new Razr range, marking a landmark moment for the development of AI in mobile tech. Starting May 15, Motorola’s Razr, Razr Plus, and Razr 60 Ultra phones will include Perplexity’s AI features as part of the “Moto AI” suite of features, marking a new generation of AI-driven mobile experiences. Perplexity announced on their official blog post that,

We’re excited to announce our global partnership with Motorola. Starting with the new generation of Motorola devices, Perplexity will be pre-installed on millions of smartphones worldwide, giving Motorola users direct access to our answer engine and assistant.”

According to Bloomberg, “The Lenovo Group Ltd. brand is positioning itself to offer consumers more choice of software and trendy accessories beyond market leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. The new Razr Ultra, priced at $1,300, is the third phone in the series.” Motorola is pairing the phones with designer accessories such as Swarovski crystal headphones, following its luxury-tech brand strategy. The move has been interpreted by industry experts as an attempt to specifically differentiate Motorola as a standalone play in an increasingly software-capacity-oriented foldable phone market with too much repetition.

Features Tailored for Smart Use

Perplexity AI, pre-installed on the new Razr devices, is optimized for the external display, enabling tasks like email, reservations, and reminders even when folded using the app or the “Ask Perplexity” command. Its research-grade AI engine goes beyond traditional voice assistants, providing real-time information and more. Motorola also integrates AI from Microsoft Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Meta, enhancing functionality for a richer user experience.

According to the blog, Motorola is offering a complimentary three-month subscription to Perplexity Pro for users of its latest phones, including the Razr and Edge 60 models. This promotion grants access to a variety of advanced features, including:

In-depth research capabilities for detailed analysis on complex topics.
A selection of cutting-edge AI models such as Sonar, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and GPT-4.
Pro shopping tools.
Unlimited file uploads and access to advanced reasoning searches.

Conclusion

Perplexity’s entry into the smartphone space, backed by a recent $500 million investment round, also suggests greater ambitions for consumer goods for AI. Some think that this tie-up can reshape people’s expectations of smartphone assistants in what they can do, especially when it comes to real-time contextual intelligence.

Since AI will become a distinguishing factor of smartphones in the coming years, this choice places the corporation not only as a hardware inventor, but as a creator of platforms during the AI-first era.