15% of Perplexity Shopping responses contain risky sites

Perplexity’s shopping answers surfaced risky websites in 15% of responses, compared with 8% for ChatGPT and 4% for Gemini, according to a Podqi study reported by The Verge. Podqi queried three chatbots across 151 brands in two rounds in September, collecting 6,795 answers about where to buy products and whether international shipping was available. The risky sites included fake storefronts impersonating brands, counterfeit sellers, third-party re-registrations of former brand domains, and inactive sites. The metric reflects how often dangerous sites appeared in answers, not the share of purchases that went wrong. The findings matter as AI assistants increasingly mediate product discovery and referral traffic, putting brand safety and merchant verification under scrutiny. What to watch next is whether chatbot operators tighten source vetting and domain checks for shopping responses.