The modern market for AI systems is very diverse. In addition to generative LLMs and smart chatbots, there are truly exclusive products here. One of them is Perplexity AI. This is a hybrid of a search engine and a chatbot, which has become very popular recently. In our article, you will learn how this service works, what its advantages are, where it can be used, and whether Perplexity AI is free or not.
What is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity AI is an AI-enabled search engine with a conversational chatbot interface. The developers call it a “Swiss knife for information retrieval.” The service uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies to understand context and search data on the internet. This allows it to quickly find information from various sources and generate accurate answers to user questions, even on the most complex topics. Essentially, the system is a combination of ChatGPT and Google Search with some special features.
The innovative product was released in 2022 by Perplexity AI founders consisting of Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Aravind Srinivas. The team members met while working on large language models at Google AI and subsequently left to start their own project. “In a world where everyone gets answers and doesn’t have to click on links, the biggest loser is Google”, says Perplexity AI founder Aravind Srinivas.
Enthusiasts consider their mission to be democratizing access to knowledge for a wide audience. Therefore, they are actively developing their AI assistant, improving its efficiency, and expanding its functionality. In the near future, developers plan to equip Perplexity AI with tools for generating code, solving mathematical problems, and compiling tables.
The company is based in San Francisco and is funded by venture capital investments. In 2022, it launched a beta version of its AI-enabled search engine and raised $2 million in a seed round of funding. In 2023, a mobile application for iOS/Android was released. The project's audience reached 10 million visits and 2 million unique visitors per month. At the same time, the next investment round, Series A, led by New Enterprise Associates, was conducted, which brought $25,600,000. In January 2024, the startup received $73,600,000 during the Series B round, led by Institutional Venture Partners. A B1 round led by Daniel Gross in April increased its budget by another $63 million. In total, the company has attracted $165 million in investments, bringing its valuation to more than $1 billion.
Perplexity AI pricing includes two tariff plans:
- Free Standard. It uses a standard AI model. The plan includes an unlimited number of Quick queries and up to 5 Pro queries per day. Registered users can expect personalized responses.
- Paid Professional. Cost – $20 per month. Offers unlimited Quick queries and up to 600 Pro queries per day. Subscribers can choose between GPT-4, Claude-3, Sonar Large (Llama 3), and other AI models. In addition, they receive unlimited file downloads and analysis, visualization of up to 50 responses per day via Playground AI, DALL-E, SDXL, and other models, as well as $5 per month API credits.
How Does Perplexity AI Work?
Perplexity AI functionality is based on a set of language models: GPT-4, Mistral Large, Claude-3, Llama 3, and custom LLMs. This combination of AI technologies allows the system to understand user text queries, find relevant information on the internet, and summarize it to generate answers. The developers claim that the neural network scans the internet daily, collecting the most relevant data during the search process.
Surely, you are already eager to find out how to use Perplexity AI. To use the search chatbot, visit https://www.perplexity.ai/ or download the mobile app. Registration is not required. Users can ask a question they are interested in through the interactive interface and receive an instant answer.
The Focus function allows you to specify the topic of the question and thus narrow the search to select more relevant results. The efficiency of the service is significantly increased thanks to the following modes:
- All – standard mode for searching the entire internet.
- Academic – search for academic publications.
- Writing – text generation and dialogue without internet search.
- Wolfram Alpha – perform calculations, including mathematical calculations.
- YouTube – YouTube search with video broadcasting.
- Reddit – search for information among discussions and opinions on the social network Reddit.
The service offers two types of search:
- Quick search – unlimitedly available for free accounts.
- Pro search – with a limit on requests (from 5 to 600 per day).
In Quick mode, the neural network generates short answers without delving into the topic given to it. Perplexity AI Pro is a more powerful search mode in which the AI asks clarifying questions, digs deeper into the topic, and provides a detailed answer. Furthermore, in Pro mode, users can upload images and files for analysis, as well as create images based on text queries using text-to-image LLM. Integration with third-party systems is supported via API.
The Threads feature organizes user questions into thematic “collections.” You can add prompt templates to each. This will help you quickly formulate and send a question to the bot on the topic. Moreover, there is an opportunity to share questions with other users.
In addition to the web interface and mobile application, Perplexity AI provides two extensions for Google Chrome. The first sets the service as the default search engine. The second embeds it into the browser interface, allowing you to quickly summarize information on sites and obtain additional information about it upon request.
Perplexity Playground is an equally useful tool. It is located at https://labs.perplexity.ai/ This is an experimental platform for interacting with different LLMs with a high response rate. It is available to any user absolutely free. All you need is registration. Like the main version of the service, it has a conversational chatbot interface and an impressive set of language models. It includes over 15 LLMs, including Llama 3 Sonar Large, Llama 3 Sonar Small, Llama 3 70B, Claude 3, Mistral 7B, Mistral Medium, Mixstral 8x22B, and a number of others. They generate and review code, create textual content, conduct scientific research, and perform other tasks.
Key Advantages of Perplexity AI
The Perplexity AI platform has several advantages:
- Accuracy. When comparing the results of Perplexity AI vs ChatGPT, the search bot's responses are highly accurate. Unlike ChatGPT, it relies on multiple different LLMs simultaneously and immediately starts searching the internet, not just its own database (like a chatbot with GPT-3.5 does). This helps it better understand the context of the request and provide a detailed, relevant response.
- Transparency. The service provides a list of information sources it used to prepare responses. This makes it more transparent and efficient. Users have the opportunity to independently examine the materials to ensure their accuracy.
- Completeness of the topic. Perplexity AI Pro delves deep into the topic of the request and generates a detailed, comprehensive response. It not only collects and summarizes data on a topic but also takes into account additional context and potentially useful information for the user.
- Usability. The platform has a classic chatbot interface, similar to ChatGPT and Google Gemini. In the center of the page, there is a compact dialog box where advanced functions are seamlessly integrated. In the left panel, you can quickly create a new question, view your question history (Library button), and current trends from the internet (Discovery button).
- Personalization. Perplexity AI flexibly personalizes its responses based on the user's interests and previous queries. This improves the accuracy and relevance of the data it provides.
- Functionality. The service processes not only plain text but also files uploaded to it (PDF), as well as images. It is capable of generating original text based on information from the internet and summarizing pre-existing materials, creating a summary with the main points. It also supports image generation (text-to-image). To make the AI's responses more personalized, users can ask it leading questions.
Applications of Perplexity AI
AI search engine Perplexity performs a wide range of tasks and is suitable for use in many areas. The main ones include:
- Content generation and optimization. The service will be especially useful for bloggers, content authors, digital agencies, media and publishing houses. It can be used for collecting ideas, searching for materials, fact-checking, as well as for writing, editing, summarizing content, and other tasks.
- Scientific research and data analysis. Perplexity AI's ability to collect, process, and analyze large amounts of information has made it popular among scientists and analysts. Quickly sorting data and preparing accurate, detailed answers based on a range of sources increases the speed and efficiency of their tasks. Additionally, this service is ideal for obtaining citations and summarizing long documents.
- Marketing analytics. A feature-rich search bot useful for market research, competitor analysis, and other types of marketing analytics. For example, it can be used to collect information about the target audience, market indicators, competitive environment, current trends, and more. This will allow businesses to make more accurate and informed decisions.
- Professional development. Professionals from a variety of industries can use Perplexity AI to explore new technologies, trends, advances, industry practices, and regulatory changes. Its algorithms greatly facilitate and speed up the learning process. For professionals, this advantage is one of the most significant.
Competition and Future of Perplexity AI
The search engine bot Perplexity AI is predicted to have a great future, being called an innovative alternative to Google. According to experts, this AI product offers a fundamentally new approach to online search technologies, making it more intuitive, convenient, relevant, and personalized.
A set of powerful LLMs, unlimited internet access, and contextual understanding allowed us to create a truly revolutionary solution that revolutionized outdated keyword-based search methods. Unlike classic search engines, Perplexity AI delves deeper into a given topic and also takes into account the intentions and context of user queries. Equally important is search transparency, which allows you to freely evaluate the reliability and validity of the results. These and other characteristics make Perplexity AI a true game changer in search technology. The active development of the platform and increased interest from investors can make it not only a serious competitor to Google but also the flagship of a new era of personalized AI search in the near future.
Conclusion
AI Perplexity is a powerful universal tool that combines the functionality of a classic internet search engine and an AI-enabled chatbot. With it, users can find information on a wide range of topics, generate text, code, and images, upload files for analysis, and perform other tasks. The service has a simple interactive interface. You can use it through the website, mobile application, and browser extension. One of the great benefits of Perplexity AI is that it comes with a free plan. This makes it accessible to a wide audience of individuals, professionals, and companies.
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