In 2024, there will be two ways to find information on the Internet: you can start a Google search or ask a specific question to an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini. Ideally, you would do both and jump between the web pages provided by Google and the responses from ChatGPT, checking the AI hallucinations and finding the most reliable sources.
What if there was one tool that could do both? This is the niche that AI Perplexity aims to fill.
Lost combines search and artificial intelligence
AI embarrassment combines online search with popular existing artificial intelligence models in a way that is potentially truly useful. A key limitation of some AI models, including ChatGPT, is that they are trained on data that is a year or two elderly. (At least those that can’t connect to the Internet). They can’t share the latest information from novel research papers or even chat on Reddit.
Perplexity has its own search engine that digs into the web and grabs the latest information. Then it does something even better: when providing this information, it cites sources, just as a reliable search engine would. This way, you can determine whether they are trustworthy without having to do the extra work of directly verifying every fact and figure.
Source: Khamosh Pathak
Perplexity still works like a chatbot: you create a novel thread, enter a prompt, and refine it with follow-up questions. You can also rename or delete threads along the way.
Search results appear directly in the chatbot interface. At the top you’ll see a sources section so you can quickly open the website and see if it’s what you’re looking for. Where appropriate, Perplexity also displays images and YouTube videos, so you can rely on these visual cues as well. This is especially useful when you are trying to find a solution to a technical problem or, for example, looking for the ingredients of a recipe.
Once you start your search, you can apply one of the “Focus” features to search only specific parts of the Internet. For example, you can search academic articles on the Internet to find scientific answers, or you can search only Reddit to see a summary report on the prevailing opinions on a given topic.
Put it all together and you have an experience that’s better than using just Google Search or ChatGPT. I’ve been testing Perplexity’s AI for a few weeks now, and now I’m in the habit of starting my research on a novel topic from the Perplexity level rather than going down one of these separate paths.
Five AIs are better than one
If you choose to pay $20 per month for Perplexity Pro, the app will offer you a buffet of popular AI models to choose from. You can select the default option for all queries and switch between them on the fly. Suppose you receive a GPT-4 response that you don’t like; you can ask Perplexity to rewrite it using Claude’s Opus model, or try Perplexity’s own experimental model for faster answers to simpler queries.
Source: Khamosh Pathak
By default, Perplexity uses an enhanced version of GPT 3.5 for tasks such as language processing and generative text. The Pro plan gives you access to GPT-4 Turbo Open AI, the latest Opus Claude models (circumscribed to 5 searches per day, at which point you will move to Claude 3 Sonnet), vast Mistral models, and the Perplexity experimental model.
Professional search for everyone
Source: Khamosh Pathak
Embarrassment has a little switch in the prompt box labeled Professional. Turn it on and everything kicks into high gear, using GPT-4 by default. He or she may even ask you for clarification by asking a follow-up question before answering. Perplexity then scours the internet to find what it considers to be the best resources. Free users can receive additional Pro searches every four hours, and subscribers get 600 Pro searches per day. If you’re paying for the Pro model, you can just keep the Pro feature on all the time, as it’s unlikely you’ll exceed 600 queries in a single day.
This is not the only one
Perplexity isn’t the only AI search game in town. While the Generative AI feature in Google Search is still sluggish, Gemini is starting to catch up as it also allows you to re-check results by launching Google Search. In turn, Microsoft Copilot works in the same way as Perplexity AI, providing sources along with the generated text. Copilot uses ChatGPT-4 Turbo also in the free tier, while Turbo is circumscribed to Perplexity Pro searches.
That said, Microsoft Copilot depends on Bing search, while Perplexity uses its own search engine. Copilot works best on Edge, although it is also available on the web and mobile apps. Microsoft Copilot also provides answers quite quickly.
Ultimately, the choice of tool depends on experience. If you enjoy using Microsoft Edge and are interested in Microsoft products, using Copilot as a research tool may be your best bet. But if you want a minimal, rapid experience that is customizable and works well on any platform, try Perplexity AI.
A good starting point
Source: Khamosh Pathak
Overall, Perplexity AI provides a good starting point for whatever you’re looking for. Answers are generally direct and to the point, and make great apply of formatting – you’ll find answers organized by headings, bullets, and structured paragraphs.
However, please remember that Perplexity is best used as a research tool for finding answers, facts and information, not for generating text. While this has Generative text Focus, is not great at producing inventive text. In my testing, I found its copy to be a bit uninteresting and uninteresting to read compared to what you’d get with tools like Copilot, ChatGPT or Gemini, or even dedicated writing tools built on GPT-4.
The upside is that Perplexity’s free plan will be sufficient for most users. Even on the free plan, GPT-3.5 does a decent job of combining the best results from the web into a reader-friendly interface. However, if you want to apply the AI tool for research and work, the $20 upgrade is a great deal. Basically you get a super powerful web search engine and access to GPT-4 and other LLMs for the same price as ChatGPT Plus.
Perplexity’s AI is available online and can be accessed via ia mobile apps Chrome extension. This is also the default search option in Arc Browser.
