Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas on why Google Maps and YouTube are so hard to beat

A recent comment by Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas has sparked a debate about the future of competition against the Google ecosystem.

Srinivas took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that creating some products within the Google ecosystem may be hard to replicate but still “doable”.

He also noted that YouTube and Google Maps are the hardest to beat in the Google ecosystem due to their complexities.

“YouTube and Maps are the hardest. Maybe even impossible. The rest are hard but doable,” he wrote in the X post, in response to another X post which shared a picture of Google products on a device's home screen, captioning it as “there is no way any start-up can beat the Google ecosystem.”

Netizens react to the post

The netizen reactions on the X post were divided. While some users noted why it's hard to replace Google, others gave their opinions on the future of tech disruption.

An X user noted all the reasons that make it so tough to beat the Google ecosystem as he said it is important to note “ecosystem”, which comes with interconnectedness, existing data and infrastructure, adding, “just think of all the data in photos, youtube, docs, sheets, maps which is why Gemini is, imo, will ultimately “win” the ai race.”

Speaking specifically about Google Maps, a user noted, “Curious which part is hard about maps?. You can get entire planet map in open source and then overlay the details using satellite images and get most of it. Accuracy is def bit challenging but not sure if it’s impossible.”

Another user mentioned why Google is hard to replace. “Google needs to have a basically perfect security record. They can't ever get hacked, they can't ever leak personal details. The ecosystem is just too tied together, a hack would be terrible and would rock a lot of people's confidence in letting one company have so much data. Fortunately it does look like Google might be among the most secure companies in the world? So it might actually work out.”

Who is Aravind Srinivas?

Aravind Srinivas is the co-founder of Perplexity, wan AI-powered search engine rivaling global giants such as Gemini and ChatGPT. Recently he was named the youngest billionaire on the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025.

The 31-year-old, originally from Chennai, made a debut in the list with a personal wealth of ₹21,190 crore, a reflection of India’s rapid rise in deep-tech and AI-driven innovation.