Truth Social’s AI Search Leverages Perplexity, But Limits Access to Sources

The AI startup Perplexity is powering a newly unveiled AI-driven search engine on Truth Social, the social media platform created by President Donald Trump.

Dubbed Truth Search AI, the search engine is currently available on the web version of Truth Social, with plans for a public beta release on its iOS and Android apps in the “near future.”

As per a press release from Trump Media, Perplexity’s technology provides “direct, contextually accurate responses with clear citations,” significantly augmenting the information available to Truth Social users. Nevertheless, the platform retains control over the sources from which the AI search engine pulls data.

Truth Social employs the Perplexity Sonar API, which purports to scan the web for current and verified information—even from sites that limit access to Perplexity’s crawlers—and supports structured responses, giving users options on how they’d like to view their results.

Jesse Dwyer, a representative from Perplexity, informed TechCrunch that the reliability of the Sonar API hinges on the sources chosen by Truth Social.

“We don’t have visibility or control over that,” Dwyer said. “It’s similar to using the API within your own organization or as an academic researcher searching on your own data.”

TechCrunch has contacted Trump Media for clarity on whether Truth Search AI will tap into the entire internet, prioritize specific sources, and whether the AI will be designed to produce responses that favor the president and administration while being critical of Democrats.

To assess the sources the searchbot might reference, Axios asked several questions, including “What happened on January 6, 2021?” and “Why was Donald Trump impeached?” In response, FoxNews.com was often the primary or sole cited source, with others like FoxBusiness.com, The Washington Times, and Epoch Times also appearing.

In contrast, Perplexity’s public search engine provides a wider range of sources, including platforms like Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, NPR, and Politico.

Truth Social aims to enhance and broaden its search functionality “based on user feedback while incorporating a variety of additional improvements to the platform,” according to Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media and a former California congressman, in the statement.

Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s Chief Business Officer, also noted in the release that Perplexity’s AI delivers answers with “transparent citations that allow users to delve deeper.”

In late July, alongside his AI Action Plan, Trump signed an executive order addressing “biased AI,” which is aimed at models that do not maintain “ideological neutrality.” The order specifically tackled issues related to race or gender, unconscious bias, and systemic racism, labeling these concepts as “pervasive and destructive” ideologies that could “distort the quality and accuracy of the output.”

Truth Search AI was launched during the same week that major AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google were approved as vendors authorized to provide services to civilian federal agencies. OpenAI recently made a deal with the U.S. government’s primary procurement entity to supply ChatGPT Enterprise to agencies at an astonishingly low rate of $1 per year.