Nov 18 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence search

startup Perplexity on Monday launched a shopping hub to attract

users, in a bid to beef up its platform as it attempts to take

on Alphabet-owned Google's dominance in the search

engine space.

The firm, backed by Amazon ( AMZN ) founder Jeff Bezos and

leading AI chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA ), will give users product

cards showing relevant items in response to questions related to

shopping.

Each card provides product details in a visual format, the

company said.

The new feature is powered by platform integrations

including Shopify ( SHOP ), which gives access to recent and

relevant information on products from businesses on the Canadian

e-commerce platform globally that ship to the United States.

E-commerce platforms have focused on employing more

AI-powered tools in an effort to pull in more merchants.

Perplexity's online shopping-focused rollout includes 'Snap

to Shop' - a visual search tool that shows products based on

users' photos of an item.

The features are first launching in the United States and

will later expand to other markets, the timeline for which was

not specified.

Perplexity is also introducing a 'Merchant Program' to allow

retailers to share product information with the company.

The startup is raising new investment that would value it at

$9 billion, Reuters had reported earlier in November.

Perplexity has been looking to expand its offerings, with

OpenAI now a direct competitor after the generative AI pioneer

added a set of new search functions to ChatGPT.