6 ways to automate Perplexity

If conducting research is a regular part of your workflow, chances are you've lost more than a few hours to tabs, links, and scattered searches. Enter Perplexity, the conversational AI search engine that gives you direct answers from real, reliable web sources and cites its answers—no endless link-hopping required.

By bringing Perplexity into your workflows with Zapier automation, you can tap into always-on research and seamlessly route answers to the tools where decisions are made: CRMs, spreadsheets, docs, Slack, and more. It's like plugging a live research engine into your business systems so every workflow becomes more informed, adaptive, and AI-powered.

Here's how to get started.

Skip ahead

• Using AI in automated workflows

• Automatically enrich inbound leads

• Research key accounts at scale

• Generate blog outlines

• Monitor trends in real time

• Optimize your content research

A quick note on using AI in automated workflows

First, it's worth mentioning that using AI tools like Perplexity in your Zaps almost always requires a multi-step Zap. The basic workflow will likely be:

1. The trigger event (like a new lead entering your CRM)

2. The AI step (like asking Perplexity to enrich the lead data)

3. Sending that Perplexity research somewhere (like back to your CRM for reference later)

Most of the templates in this article will include three or more steps, but even if they don't, you can add steps to any Zap to ensure your workflows start and end in the right places. Or, if you like a three-step template, you can click on it to customize it—including switching the trigger or destination apps to the ones your team uses. 

To learn more, check out our tutorial on effectively adding AI to your Zapier workflows.

Auto-enrich inbound leads

In an ideal world, every new lead would land in your CRM with a complete profile—including a work email, job title and industry, and even background information on their company. But we live in this world, which means you often need to spend time hunting down supplementary information about new leads before qualifying them.

Instead, build your own research assistant with Perplexity and automation. When a new lead enters your CRM, Perplexity can summarize the company's background, leadership, and latest news, then your Zap can attach it to the record. Or, if you're using a form to collect lead data and send it to a spreadsheet, let Perplexity enrich that data before creating a spreadsheet row. 

This kind of addition helps sales reps prioritize better, personalize faster, and act on leads while they're still hot—all without ever leaving your CRM dashboard.

Research key accounts at scale

When reaching out to high-value prospects, personalization is essential—but time-consuming. Instead of manually researching each company, you can automate the process by connecting your CRM or spreadsheet to Perplexity. Drop in a list of company names or domains, and let Perplexity do the heavy lifting, returning a brief executive summary or key insights you can use to tailor your messaging.

This is especially powerful for sales development reps, account executives, or marketers running outbound campaigns who want to personalize at scale without burning hours on research.

You can even set up a Zap to keep tabs on current events, conduct research, and notify you of outreach opportunities. This Zap monitors a news feed—like Google Alerts or a trade publication's RSS feed—and sends company names or article URLs to Perplexity for analysis. It then generates a short summary you can quickly use in a personalized outreach email. That way, you can capitalize on timely events and make outreach more relevant.

Generate blog outlines 

There's nothing worse than staring at a blank page, especially when you have a high-volume content calendar to keep up with. With Perplexity, you can skip the research rabbit hole and instantly get a jumping-off point for your next blog post. Just feed it a topic from your editorial calendar and get back a structured outline with angles, trends, and recent news.

Whether you manage your blog content in a spreadsheet, Airtable, or a task manager like Trello or Asana, you can trigger this Zap any time a new topic is added—so your writing process always starts with momentum.

Monitor trends in real-time

Staying on top of market trends shouldn't require opening a dozen tabs before your morning coffee. With scheduled prompts to Perplexity, you can get curated insights delivered daily or weekly without lifting a finger. Just set your Zap to ask questions like "What are some GTM trends in the fintech space right now?" or "What's new in AI governance this week?" and route the response to your tool of choice.

Whether you prefer updates in Slack, Teams, or your inbox, this automation turns trend tracking into a hands-off habit. It's ideal if you're a marketer shaping strategy, a founder keeping an eye on the competitive landscape, or you just want a smarter way to scan what's happening in your industry on a regular basis.

Optimize your content research

Before you write a landing page or email campaign, you need to understand your audience's mindset: what questions they're asking, what hesitations they have, and how they talk about the problem your product solves. Instead of manually digging through forums, review sites, or competitor copy, automate that research with Perplexity.

Set up a workflow to answer prompts like "What are common objections to [product category]?" or "How do people compare [competitor] and [your product]?" and have the insights automatically added to your research doc, Notion workspace, or Slack thread. It's a fast, scalable way to inform messaging that resonates, not to mention keep your team aligned around real customer pain points.

Here's your new research assistant: now on autopilot

Perplexity turns questions into answers—and Zapier turns answers into action. By connecting Perplexity to your everyday tools, you can cut research time, work smarter, and keep your workflows flowing, no tab overload necessary.

And this is just the start of what you can do with Perplexity and Zapier. What will you automate first?