In a tweet that turned heads, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, wrote:
“You can now track insider trading on Perplexity Finance. We will be adding politician trading shortly.”
The move signals a pivot for a company originally built on AI-powered search and answer delivery. Over the past year, Perplexity has incrementally built out its “Holders” tab to reveal institutional share ownership. Now, by integrating insider trades and politician trading, the platform enters a fraught zone: combining real-time financial data with reputational surveillance.
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Supporters see this as leveling the playing field — retail investors gaining visibility into trades normally cloaked in regulatory filings. Skeptics warn of privacy overreach, misuse, or unintended consequences as the lines blur between public accountability and financial scrutiny.
Transparency or Surveillance? The Political Trade Question
Insider trading is regulated for a reason: executives, board members and other insiders often have advance knowledge that ordinary investors lack. Public platforms already publish much of this data via regulatory filings, though often with delay and poor accessibility.
But when it comes to politician trading, the terrain is more delicate. Some jurisdictions require public officials to declare holdings; others don’t. Publishing real-time trades by lawmakers could expose conflicts of interest — but also raise thorny debates about privacy, chilling political participation, and the oversight of personal wealth.
Perplexity’s tease — “adding politician trading shortly” — is thus more than a product update. It’s entering a space where markets intersect with governance, accountability, and the role of data in public life.
Technology, Trust and the Risks of AI-Driven Finance
On the technical front, integrating insider and politician trades into a consumer-facing product is not trivial. It requires clean data ingestion, verification of source filings, alignment of timestamps, and filtering noise. Mistakes can lead to liability.
Furthermore, there is a trust dimension: users may treat the data platform’s signals as endorsements or alerts, raising pressure on Perplexity to moderate or flag suspicious behavior. Will it become the arbiter of what counts as suspicious trading by powerful individuals?
Compounding this is regulatory ambiguity. In India and elsewhere, securities regulators may require disclosures and limit distribution of trading data. The interplay between Perplexity’s ambition and local laws could become a battleground over who gets to see and judge trading behavior next.
A Platform’s Moment: Influence, Risk, and the Edge of Data
Perplexity is already pushing boundaries. Its Comet browser has reportedly executed trades on Zerodha without clicks — a technical leap that blends user convenience with automation. The firm’s broader strategy appears to empower users with more financial visibility and autonomy.
But entry into markets and political domains is risk-laden. With new power comes scrutiny: errors, misinterpretations, or misuse of data may bring backlash. For regulators, too, the question is whether to embrace this openness or resist its disruption.
Srinivas’s announcement is not just a product pivot — it’s a signal: Perplexity is staking a claim in the evolving battleground of AI, finance and public accountability. The next months will show whether it can hold the line between enabling transparency and imposing surveillance.
