'Start using AI...' Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas' advice to Indian engineers amid AI-led job losses

Amid the looming job crisis due to the rapid advancements in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, Perplexity AI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arvind Srinivas has shared a piece of advice for Indian engineers at the News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2025.

Recently, a couple of AI startups crossed millions of dollars of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) but with only a handful of workforce, including Perplexity. AI companies have brought a significant shift in the hiring trend in the startup ecosystem. Traditionally, funding rounds of startups used to coincide with the huge demand for engineers, full-stack developers, resulting in a salary boom. However, AI-led firms are building 10X better products with only a handful of engineers.

For instance, the Silicon Valley-based Midjourney achieved $200 million in ARR with just 11 employees, while Bolt crossed $30 million in ARR with 20 staff.

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Against this trend, Perplexity CEO has advised Indian engineers to upskill themselves in the AI field as much as possible.

Srinivas said to aspire tech entrepreneurs, "If you are not using AI while writing code, you are essentially stagnating yourself by sticking with old workflow and tooling".

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Srinivas explained that using AI for code can help engineers find projects, help in executing new ideas into production, and achieve millions of dollars in annual revenue recurring.

While Srinivas sees endless possibilities in AI, he also cautioned that "there's going be a transition time and people who don't want to adapt, will definitely face some difficulties".

On the intention of Perplexity AI's hiring in India, Srinivas clarified that his company has not hired anyone right now.

"We have received tons of applications. While we expected people with some experience in job profiles, like general managers or business development, to apply, we saw a wide array of people with different sets of skills applied. We have halted the hiring for a while but will resume when we plan to expand," Srinivas said.

He also spoke on the fast-changing AI world and why it's crucial for founders to work harder. He said that the AI industry moved faster in the past 3 months for him than his first two years of starting Perplexity. "This was partially because of China's DeepSeek and other AI models entry in the global market. Therefore, in this industry , there's no subsitute to hardwork".

Srinivas said that he tries to work whole time when he is awake. Citing a quote of Jens Wang, Srinivas said, "I wake up, I work, and even when I'm not working, I think about work".

On the pricey subscription of Perplexity in India, which is currently priced at $20, Srinivas stated that he would be reducing the cost to some amount.

"A lot of consumer subscription apps such as Netflix and Amazon have adopted strategy and we are also trying to figure it out to create a lower and a higher tier plan for the Indian market".