What is Perplexity AI? A Smarter Way to Search

PerplexityAI, founded in August 2022, describes itself as an “AI-powered Swiss Army Knife.” Much like how a Swiss Army Knife offers a collection of tools for different tasks, Perplexity is a conversational search engine capable of answering a broad spectrum of questions—from straightforward factual inquiries to more complex, conceptual ones.

Founded by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, Perplexity AI has surged in adoption. In just seven months after its inception, the team successfully raised $25.6 million in Series A funding. Read on to explore how Perplexity is redefining your search experience and how you can use it to improve productivity in your workplace.

What is Perplexity?

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine designed to provide precise, well-sourced answers in response to user queries. Perplexity AI uses large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP) to deliver contextual, human-like responses with verifiable sources. It pulls data from the internet in real-time to deliver a comprehensive response to questions and prompts.

Perplexity Pro provides options to choose advanced AI models (from Deepseek R1, OpenAI o3-mini, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Sonar, and more) and search files from Spaces. This tier also provides access to exclusive support channels (like Discord and intercom support), custom knowledge hubs, and collaborative spaces.

Perplexity Enterprise Pro has extended features like Pro Search for in-depth research, access to advanced AI models such as GPT-4 and Claude 3, and integration with internal knowledge bases. It also includes security measures such as data privacy, SOC2 certification, and user management, ensuring that sensitive information remains protected. Each answer includes citations with which the users can verify or explore the information.

Perplexity also offers two modes of search:

• Quick Search for immediate responses

• Pro Search for more detailed answers, with features such as conversational dialogue and contextual memory to facilitate a smooth user experience.

Key features

• Uses language models like GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3 to interpret questions and search sources such as news outlets, academic papers, and blogs.

• Allows users to organize their research through Spaces.

• Transforms research into polished content by creating shareable articles through Perplexity Pages

• Offers incognito mode on the home page, which is a privacy feature that allows users to search without saving their query history.

• Supports voice search in the Perpleixty app on mobiles for a more convenient interaction.

• Provides an API for integration of open-source language models into projects, with straightforward access and management options.

• Launched a generative API search tool, Sonar by Perplexity, in 2025 that outperforms competitors in factuality, with Sonar Pro achieving an F-score of 0.858 in the SimpleQA benchmark, compared to Sonar’s F-score of 0.773.

Pricing information

Perplexity offers free plans and customized pricing options:

• Free plan with unlimited quick searches, 5 Pro searches per day, 3 file uploads, and access to fast AI free model.

• Perplexity Pro plan is priced at $20/month for unlimited free searches and file uploads; 300+ Pro searches per day include $5 worth of free monthly API credits.

• Enterprise Pro offers a self-serve model with pricing at $40/month/seat and $400/year/seat. The company also offers custom pricing for large enterprises.

How does Perplexity work?

Perplexity AI uses advanced language models like GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3 to provide real-time, intelligent search and discovery. Unlike traditional search engines, it better understands context and cites sources for transparency.

1. Understanding the query. Perplexity analyzes the question using NLP to detect intent, context, and key details.

2. Web search. It retrieves relevant information from sources, including articles, websites, journals, research papers, news sites, and live data feeds.

3. Information processing. The AI extracts insights, filters out redundant or misleading data, and generates a clear, concise response.

4. Citing sources. Each answer includes numbered footnotes with links to the original sources, allowing users to verify information easily.

5. Response delivery. Delivers a well-structured output that is easy for users to understand and provides hyperlinked options for further follow-up.

How to use Perplexity AI

Using Perplexity AI is simple and intuitive, whether you’re looking to quickly answer a question, dive deeper into a topic, or explore new areas of knowledge.

1. Visit the Perplexity AI website at perplexity.ai. Once you’re on the platform, you’ll land on the main search interface— the “Home” screen.

2. Type your question or search term into the search bar. Perplexity supports a wide range of inquiries, from factual questions like “What is the capital of France?” to more complex topics like “How does machine learning work?”. If needed, there is also an option to upload any document/file supporting your query. All your search threads are stored in the “Library” tab, which you can refer to at any time to ask any specific follow-up question. You can also explore current news curated topics from the “Discover” tab.

3. Perplexity will return an answer with citations (as numbered footnotes) to your query. You can verify the information by referring to the hyperlinked article in the footnote. This feature helps to ensure the credibility of the answers provided.

4. You can organize your results using “Spaces,” which are personalized areas where you can store and manage different research topics. You can add notes, upload documents, and collaborate with others within these spaces. If you’re working in a team, Perplexity’s collaboration features allow you to share research within your workspace.

Perplexity use cases

Perplexity AI is used across various domains to offer real-time insights, content summarization, and research assistance.

Real-time information retrieval

Many language models are limited to information from their training data rather than accessing the internet in real time. Perplexity’s ability to access and process live data feeds allows it to provide up-to-date information on ongoing events. Perplexity provides live updates on sports scores, elections, weather, and other real-time events by accessing dynamic data feeds.

For example, for the 2024 US election, Perplexity formed an Election Information Hub that pulls data from The Associated Press and uses the Elections API by Democracy Works to deliver up-to-the-minute results for presidential, senate, and house races. Users can track national and state-level results, verify candidate positions, and get AI-summarized reports on policy stances and ballot measures. It answers questions about polling locations, voting requirements, and election procedures using curated, trustworthy sources.

Education and teaching

Teachers embracing AI in education can use Perplexity AI to prepare their lesson plans by researching complex topics and gathering the latest data so that their teaching material remains current and accurate. Students benefit from its ability to provide reliable research assistance, which helps them understand concepts, summarize complex topics, and complete assignments. During live classes, educators might use Perplexity’s real-time response capability to instantly answer student queries, making lessons more interactive.

For example, 'Iolani School’, a K-12 institution, collaborated with Perplexity AI, which helped the educators quickly generate course syllabi and curate questions for guided discussions. They also provided students and faculty with safe access to an advanced AI research and knowledge tool, which facilitates efficient lesson planning, real-time query responses during classes, and comprehensive debate preparations.

Research and academics

Perplexity AI is a research tool for students and academics to find peer-reviewed sources, analyze topics in-depth, and ensure credibility through citations. Researchers can dive into complex subjects to retrieve the most relevant insights from authoritative sources. Users can make use of its content summarization to condense books, articles, and research papers into digestible formats.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) employed Perplexity AI to conduct real-time policy research. The education department accessed research on adult learning principles to gain updates and current events in under 30 seconds.

Business applications

In November 2024, Perplexity launched its shopping hub to attract users by providing product cards that display relevant items in response to shopping-related queries. Companies might use Perplexity AI to analyze market trends and make data-driven decisions to stay competitive in their industries. E-commerce and service sectors can use Perplexity to analyze consumer search trends, track competitor pricing, and identify emerging market demands, which might help them improve customer satisfaction and increase sales.

Tripadvisor uses Perplexity’s AI-powered search to analyze traveler behavior, preferences, and trends from its 1 billion+ reviews and Viator’s 300,000+ travel experiences.

Design and innovation

For designers and product developers, Perplexity AI might help in the design research process by gathering data on consumer preferences, industry trends, and user experience studies. By providing targeted research outputs, it helps developers design new products, improve user interfaces, and create innovative solutions specific to user needs.

For example, Deutsche Telekom is integrating Perplexity AI into the development of its forthcoming "AI phone,” which will serve as a virtual assistant to provide a better user experience.

Limitations of Perplexity

While Perplexity AI is a solid resource for quick, citation-backed searches, there are a few limitations that highlight areas where it may not fully replace traditional search engines or human-driven research.

Dependence on source quality

Perplexity AI generates responses by combining pre-trained knowledge with real-time web searches. While this allows for broad coverage, the accuracy of its responses depends on the reliability of its sources. If the cited references contain misinformation, biases, or outdated facts, Perplexity may unintentionally propagate inaccuracies. Its underlying models, such as GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3, are trained on vast amounts of text but do not independently fact-check the data they retrieve. This means both its pre-trained dataset and live search results might introduce errors, requiring users to verify critical information from trusted sources.

Restrained conversation

Perplexity’s primary focus is on delivering concise search results rather than engaging in continuous, back-and-forth dialogue. While it maintains context from previous responses, which allows for follow-up questions, it is not designed for extended conversations like chat-based AI models such as ChatGPT or Gemini.

Legal and copyright concerns

Perplexity pulls data such as media content from various online sources which might not have explicit permissions. Media organizations have raised concerns about their content being used by Perplexity without compensation or proper attribution. These legal challenges might restrict the platform’s ability to freely access and use certain content which might limit its overall functionality and credibility.

Limited multimodal functionality

While Perplexity supports image and document uploads in its Pro versions, its ability to interpret complex visual data is still evolving. It may not provide the same level of accuracy or detailed analysis as specialized AI tools designed for computer vision tasks, such as image recognition or advanced visual data processing.

Perplexity FAQ

Is perplexity AI better than ChatGPT?

Perplexity AI and ChatGPT serve different purposes, so which one is “better” depends on your needs. Perplexity focuses on delivering concise, factual answers with real-time citations from trusted sources, which is ideal for quick research. ChatGPT excels in creating conversational interactions. For example, if you want to draft an article, you might use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas and frame outlines, while Perplexity will help you get data, references, and citations.

What are the benefits of using Perplexity AI in search?

With Perplexity AI, you get real-time answers backed by citations from sources. With its conversational capabilities, you can ask follow-up questions, which makes it easier for you to learn more about specific topics.

How does Perplexity AI differ from traditional search engines? When you use a traditional search engine, it gives you a list of links and snippets from various websites, from which you can click through multiple pages to find the answer. When you search through Perplexity AI, it gives you a concise write-up with citations and a list of relevant follow-up questions, which saves you time and effort.

References

1. Getting Started with Perplexity

2. Perplexity raises Series A funding round

3. Welcome to Sonar by Perplexity

4. Advancing the power of facts

5. Democracy works

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