Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal's AI search startup, Parallel Web Systems, is deepening its partnership with the world's largest search company.
Agrawal founded Parallel over two and a half years ago to help AI agents search the web. Now, Google will offer Parallel to cloud customers who are building AI agents with the Gemini model, giving Parallel access to Google's vast clientele.
Investors like Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins back Parallel. It has raised $230 million to date, and last reported a valuation of $2 billion in April.
Agrawal said he started Parallel after becoming obsessed with the idea that AI agents would eventually search the web exponentially more than humans — and would need a different way to do so.
While traditional search engines prioritize webpages that are easy for people to read, Parallel retrieves information for AI models, including material buried deep within documents.
As AI agents take on more work, equipping them with up-to-date information has become crucial. That process, known as grounding, is what Parallel and other startups like Exa are trying to solve.
Google Cloud president and chief revenue officer Matt Renner told Business Insider the Parallel partnership reflects its strategy of giving customers choice. While Google has its own grounding tools, businesses may prefer different products depending on the use case.
Parallel is available on other clouds beyond Google, including Amazon Web Services. Agrawal said the Google relationship goes beyond distribution, marking "our deepest technical integration with a hyperscaler model lab to date."
Parallel has built much of its product on Google Cloud since day one. And in recent months, engineers from both companies have worked to bring together tools from both companies so customers don't have to build those connections themselves, Agrawal said.
Parallel has landed major customers like the legal AI startup Harvey, which uses Parallel's search tools to give its AI models access to current web information alongside customers' internal data.
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Geoff Weiss is a senior reporter on Business Insider’s tech team, where he writes about AI startups and Y Combinator, the intersection of AI and the media industry, and workplace dynamics within top AI labs and chip companies.Previously, Geoff was on the media desk, covering YouTube and Netflix, and themes like the intersection of Hollywood and the creator economy. His work on Netflix’s video podcasting ambitions and Mr Beast’s lessons for Hollywood won second and first prize, respectively, at the 2025 LA Press Club Awards.Prior to joining Business Insider, Geoff was the senior editor of Tubefilter and a staff writer at Entrepreneur. He graduated from New York University with a degree in English Literature.He can be reached at [email protected], on Signal @geoffweiss.25, and on LinkedIn. Have a tip? Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.Selected stories:Nvidia crushed its quarter — and CEO Jensen Huang said in a leaked all-hands that 'the market did not appreciate it'Nvidia will foot the bill for Trump's new visa fees. Here's what CEO Jensen Huang told staff.Massive AI salaries and RTO are fueling a real estate boom in San Francisco: 'It's going to rain money'The AI talent wars are ricocheting across startups. Here's how they're competing with Big Tech.
