What is Perplexity AI?

Perplexity calls itself a "Swiss Army Knife for information discovery and curiosity," but it's essentially an AI-powered search engine. Think of it as a mashup of ChatGPT and Google Search—though it's not a direct replacement for either. It isn't trying to provide you with a list of results, but with clear and well cited answers to your questions. For some things, it pulls this off really well; for others, the situation is a bit more complicated. 

Perplexity works like a chatbot: you ask questions, and it answers them. It's also able to pull in information from recent articles using search APIs like Google and Bing. That's how you can ask it about recent news, game scores, and other typical search queries.  

But Perplexity is also a kind of search engine. Instead of presenting you with a list of websites that match your query, Perplexity gives you a short summary answer along with the references it used to create it. In some cases, the summary will be all you need. In others, you'll want to dive into the different sources.

While Perplexity can't yet replace a traditional search engine, it's surprisingly functional and effective if you work within its limits. And if you pull it into your business workflows with Zapier, you can use the AI engine behind Perplexity to support your existing work.

Here's what you need to know about Perplexity.

Table of contents:

• How does Perplexity AI work?

• What can you do with Perplexity AI right now?

• Where is Perplexity AI heading?

• Perplexity AI pricing

• Automate Perplexity with Zapier

How does Perplexity AI work?

Perplexity relies on a number of different large language models (LLMs) to provide its natural language processing capabilities—the list includes GPT-5, Claude 4, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Grok 4, and Perplexity's own custom models. It uses these LLMs both to understand exactly what you're asking it and to summarize the relevant answer. You can choose a model to use all queries or allow Perplexity to select the one that it thinks is best.

For search, Perplexity uses both Google and Bing APIs, as well as its own web crawler to index the internet. This allows it to pull in search results instantly as well as answer questions that are less timely.

Perplexity offers a few kinds of searches: 

• Quick Search is designed to return fast, basic answers. It's available on the free plan.

• Pro Search attempts to understand the specifics of your question and tailors its response to your needs. You get a limited number of Pro Searches on the free plan, and it's the default on a paid plan. It will even ask you follow-up questions to further fine-tune its responses. 

Then there are the twists on this basic search idea:

• Research performs deeper research on a topic, taking more time and exploring more resources to create an in-depth report. Here's an example. 

• Labs does the same, but instead, it supposedly creates completed documents, slides, dashboards, and the like. Here's an example. I've used the same query as I did for Research, so you can get some idea of the different approaches.

And there are three different search homes:

• Finance

• Travel

• Academic

While they default to using different kinds of sources, like SEC filings and academic papers, they still work much the same.

On top of that, information can be presented in different ways. Regular searches can either be Threads, which are chatbot-like conversations, or Pages, which are ready-to-share reports. Then there are Spaces, which allow you to group related threads and collaborate with other people.

It's a bit confusing and certainly creates the impression that Perplexity can do more than it does. The truth is that regardless of what kind of search you do or how you ask for it to be presented, Perplexity works in much the same way. It takes your query, attempts to understand what you're looking to know, finds websites and articles that have the answer, then presents you with a summary.

For example, if you ask Perplexity about the benefits of Zone 2 training, it will use its LLM to figure out that you're likely asking about the health benefits of moderate aerobic training. Then it will find a few authoritative health and fitness websites that talk about them and provide you with a neat summary. Both the Quick and Pro searches will give you much the same information, though the Pro search may dive a little deeper or offer you specific suggestions based on your chosen form of aerobic exercise. An Academic search will pull in more academic references, while a Research or Labs query will present a more detailed picture.

If you have more questions, you can ask them just like with a chatbot. Perplexity remembers the context of each conversation, so any information you've already provided will be taken into account. 

I'd argue that Perplexity's most important feature is that it provides you with a list of references it used—as well as footnotes indicating where each key bit of information came from—for every one of its searches. This is what allows it to work as an alternative to a regular search engine, because you can still dig deeper into the topic instead of just relying on the AI summary.

What can you do with Perplexity AI right now?

Perplexity is in a bit of a weird place. When it launched, its big differentiating factor was that, unlike other AI tools, it could pull in up-to-date web content. That's no longer the case. ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini can all do the same thing—including deep research that creates reports.

Still, in my testing with a live news event, Perplexity was able to pull in articles that were just 30 minutes old, while ChatGPT said the most recent information available was from April. But I had to push Perplexity to get the most up-to-date information—its first response was to use the same info from a few months ago as ChatGPT. 

Arguably, if you have a question that Google, Bing, or another search engine can answer, then you can use Perplexity for it, too. It can be better than a typical search engine for quickly giving you the answer in a well-structured format—but that's hardly a massive claim to fame.

Perhaps Perplexity's biggest advantage over ChatGPT, Claude, and other chatbots is just its focus: it's always trying to answer your questions with a detailed web search. So if that's what you want your AI tools to do, it's the one to go for. 

It also has a few other features worth mentioning:

• In addition to the Academic, Financial, and Travel search modes, you can search social posts. This can be useful for things like reviews. 

• You can upload your own files and documents that Perplexity will then also search.

• The Discover feature presents Perplexity threads on current topics. You can tailor it to present summaries aligned with your interests. 

• Perplexity's organizational features, like Spaces, make it easy to keep related searches together. If you're writing a book, it could be set up to be a useful research tool. 

• Perplexity has macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android apps, as well as two Chrome Extensions—one that sets it as your default search engine and another that allows you to use it on any web page.

• The Tasks feature will deliver regular reports on a set schedule.

Where is Perplexity AI heading?

As I've already flagged, Perplexity AI is in an odd place as other AI tools have matched its features and abilities. To that end, the company behind it has started to take some big swings. 

Some of them are publicity stunts, like offering to buy Google Chrome for $34.5 billion (that's billions more than it has raised from investors or is even worth). It's also offered to buy TikTok.

Others are genuine features that may pay off, like its Comet browser. Currently, Comet is only available to $200/month Perplexity Max subscribers and a limited number of other users. It makes Perplexity available as your default search and on every web page, so it can do things like compare the products listed in two separate tabs. 

It also has agentic features so it can control your browser and do things like respond to emails, clear out your spam folder, and add items to a shopping cart—at least in theory. Reviews suggest that this aspect isn't very reliable yet. But then, that's why Comet is a big swing worth talking about.

I'd also consider Perplexity's Shopping Assistant to be in this big swing category. I was unable to test it as it's still exclusive to U.S. users, and other than the publicity that it got at launch last year, I can't find any real information on anyone actually using it. But it's a standout feature, including a Buy With Pro option that allows you to buy directly from search.

Perplexity, like a lot of AI tools, has taken on a huge amount of venture capital funding and has to become an indispensable tool to a significant number of people for that to work out for everyone involved. So I expect to see even more big swings like these coming soon.

Perplexity AI pricing

Perplexity is available now through the web app, mobile apps, Chrome extensions, and the Comet browser.

• Quick Searches are free, and you don't even have to create an account to start one. You get limited access to more powerful features. 

• Perplexity Pro costs $20/month and allows you to use more powerful AI models, conduct more searches, and use features like Research and Labs with far bigger limits.

• Perplexity Max costs $200/month and gives you unlimited access to Research and Labs, the most advanced AI models, and Comet.

Automate Perplexity with Zapier

Perplexity doesn't have to live in its own little AI search silo. By bringing it into your workflows with Zapier, you can tap into insights and seamlessly route answers to the tools where actual decisions are made: CRMs, spreadsheets, docs, Slack, and more. Pull the power of an AI research engine into all your business systems so every workflow becomes more informed, adaptive, and AI-powered.

Learn more about how to automate Perplexity, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Related reading:

• How to create a custom AI chatbot with Zapier Chatbots

• How to build your own custom ChatGPT with OpenAI's GPT builder

• Claude vs. ChatGPT: What's the difference?

• Google AI Overviews: What you should know

• Perplexity vs. ChatGPT: Which is better?

This article was originally published in April 2024. The most recent update was in August 2025.