(Reuters) -Perplexity AI said on Wednesday it had partnered with payments firm PayPal (PYPL) to enable direct purchases within its chat interface.

The deal will strengthen Perplexity's agentic commerce offering, a rapidly growing trend where AI agents not only help consumers with shopping but also handle transactions for them.

Through the partnership, users will be able to check out instantly with PayPal or Venmo when they ask Perplexity Pro to find products, book travel or buy tickets, starting this summer in the United States.

The entire process, from payment to invoicing, will occur behind the scenes through PayPal's account linking, which could "eliminate the need for passwords" and "streamline the experience to a single user query or click", the AI startup said.

The partnership will also expand Perplexity's commerce tools to PayPal's more than 430 million active accounts across nearly 200 markets.

Perplexity provides information by searching the internet, similar to ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, AI giant Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank Group.

The startup is in advanced talks to raise $500 million in a funding round that would value it at $14 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Mohammed Safi Shamsi)