With AI dominating the news cycle, it only make sense that there are countless options out there to choose from when using an AI companion. Perplexity is an extremely popular AI chatbot which came after the major success of the Perplexity search engine.
The search engine-style AI is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5 model (which is also behind ChatGPT and Copilot) and is rivaling major search engines like Google, delivering information surrounding search queries in a more digestible chat format rather than your standard results page.
If you want to know more about Perplexity, regardless of if you’re a seasoned AI pro or someone who’s curious about the ever evolving AI landscape, I’ve got you covered with everything you need to know. I’ll explain how the generative AI “answer engine” works, how to get started on using it and what devices it can be used on.
What is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity can either be accessed as a search engine or as an AI chatbot. It works just like any other search engine, input your query and it will respond with cited information in a more conversational tone rather than just a list of links.
It differs from traditional search engines like Google in that it doesn’t simply provide you a list of sites where you can find the information you’re searching for. Rather, it scrapes those sites and provides said information directly.
And, unlike traditional chatbots, Perplexity doesn’t have a knowledge cutoff date, so the information it provides is always up-to-date. However, it is limited by the information in its search results. If the sites it’s pulling data from are not reliable sources, then the answers that Perplexity provides may not be entirely accurate meaning it’s always worth checking your sources.
The company announced in November 2024, that it has begun experimenting with integrating sponsored content on the side of search results. It later introduced a shopping tool that it describes as a “one-stop solution where you can research and purchase products.”
Perplexity’s format has spawned a copy from rival ChatGPT as well. Released in October 2024, ChatGPT Search does exactly what Perplexity does; it pulls information from the wider internet and uses it to generate an up-to-date conversational answer to the user’s question.
When was Perplexity released?
Perplexity the company was founded in August 2022 by Aravind Srinivas (CEO), Denis Yarats (chief technology officer), and Andy Konwinski.
In December 2022, the company announced its first commercial product, Perplexity Ask. The following January, Perplexity released new features for Ask, including up-to-date sourcing in its replies and the ability for the user to ask follow-up questions.
On Februrary 8, 2023, the company rebranded its chatbot system to just, “Perplexity” and released a Chrome extension of the same name.
January 2025 saw the launch of Perplexity Assistant, an AI powered tool to enhance the functionality of the search engine, allowing you to use it more like a regular AI chatbot if you’d prefer.
Getting started with Perplexity
If you want to try Perplexity for yourself, head over to perplexity.ai/. You can play around with the AI for free and without needing to sign in.
However, if you want to save your chat search history for future reference, you’ll need to sign up for a free account. Just click the Sign Up button in the lower-left corner of the screen, link either your Google or Apple account (or use a single sign-on with your company email account), and away you go.
On your first login, you’ll need to scroll through the site’s introductory screens, which go over the basics of the AI and also shows ads for its Pro service and mobile apps.
On the left-hand navigation bar, you can choose between the home tab, which is where you can chat with the AI directly; the Discover tab that rounds up news stories for you to peruse; Spaces, which allows you to upload your documents and set behavioral instructions for the AI to follow; and Library, where you can manage your threads (“a full back-and-forth conversation with Perplexity” that “includes your initial question, any follow-up queries, and all of Perplexity’s responses,” per the company).
The focus menu under the prompt window enables you to dictate where the AI searches for its information, whether that’s the wider web, academic publications, or video and social media sites.
There’s also an option for math-specific questions and text-generation requests. The attach button to the right of the focus menu does what it says it does and allows you to upload files and PDFs to augment your prompt. Just note that free tier users are limited to three file uploads per day.
The Pro search toggle allows you to run up to five free Pro searches per day that dig through twice the number of websites that regular “quick” searches do.
How much does Perplexity cost?
There are multiple tiers of Perplexity. You can access the basic search capabilities which are quick searches with citations and follow up-queries for free. You can also use five free Pro searches per day.
Perplexity Pro is the premium subscription tier of the AI. It costs $20 per month or $200 per year (which is in line with the rest of the industry).
The Pro subscription offers unlimited quick searches and 600 Pro searches per day, your choice of foundational model including GPT-4o, Claude-3, and Sonar Large (LLama 3.1); unlimited file uploads, access to image generators like Playground AI, DALL-E, and SDXL for data visualizations, and a $5 monthly API credit.
What devices can use Perplexity?
Perplexity AI can be used on a range of different devices including your phone, PC or Laptop. There are apps for the search engine which can be used on Mac desktop, as well as on iOS and Android.
You get the same functionality on the Perplexity app and browser edition but you may find that you prefer one over the other as they have different interfaces. The app edition is designed specifically to prevent distractions.
What’s the latest version of Perplexity?
Perplexity undergoes frequent updates to fix bugs and make quality of life changes. These typically release very couple of weeks and are typically separate updates on the web version or mobile app version.
The latest major update was the implementation of Claude Sonnet 4.5 Thinking for Pro users at the start of October 2025.
One of the main benefits of the latest version of Perplexity is the fact that it allows for video generation and inline playback. Of course you get other changes like bug fixes and performance improvements.
Perplexity controversies
Perplexity’s data-scraping practices have not made it any friends among the websites and publications it cites. In 2024 alone, the AI startup has been accused of “willful infringement” by Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane, and has been sent cease-and-desist orders from both Conde Nast and the The New York Times.
The company is also currently being sued by NewsCorp over allegations that Perplexity has committed copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
What’s next for Perplexity?
Despite utilizing the best of the best AI software at the moment in the form of GPT-5, Perplexity still updates regularly, keeping track of changes in its own Changelog.
Updates are shipped out every couple of weeks with new adjustments made. Sometimes you can access them in advance via Perplexity Labs, its research tool that allows users to provide feedback on tools that are currently in process.
Right now we’re not entirely sure what is coming next, but we can assume that we will be getting plenty of updates over time as the developers work to constantly improve Perplexity.
