What it is: Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that combines web search with the conversational style of ChatGPT. Every answer comes with cited sources you can click to verify.
Who it is for: Anyone who used to start research with Google and now wants synthesized, cited answers instead of ten blue links.
Best if: You research questions that need current information from across the web — news, comparisons, market data, scientific consensus.
Skip if: You need pure creative writing or long-form coding help — that’s not what Perplexity is built for. Want one practical AI workflow every morning? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
What is Perplexity?
Perplexity is an AI answer engine founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas (a former OpenAI researcher) and Denis Yarats. Where Google returns links and ChatGPT returns answers from its training data, Perplexity does both at once: it searches the live web, synthesizes the results, and presents an answer with footnoted citations to the source pages.
Why does Perplexity matter?
The defining feature is the citations. Every claim in a Perplexity answer has a small numbered chip next to it; click the chip and you jump to the original source. This makes it dramatically harder to hallucinate than a pure LLM — if a fact isn’t in the sources, the answer can’t lean on it.
Many professionals have made Perplexity their default browser homepage in 2026, replacing Google for question-shaped queries. The pattern is “Google for navigation, Perplexity for answers.”
How do you use Perplexity?
Perplexity offers a generous free tier and a Pro subscription ($20/month in 2026) that unlocks Pro Search (multi-step research), the choice of underlying model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Sonar — their own model), unlimited file uploads, and the Comet AI browser.
For real research tasks, switch to Pro Search or Deep Research mode — the AI spends 5-15 minutes browsing dozens of sources and writes a structured report with citations. For everyday questions, the default search mode is fast and free.
Related terms
Learn more on Beginners in AI
Sources and further reading
Last reviewed: May 2026. AI terminology evolves quickly — verify specifics on the official source pages above.
Get Smarter About AI Every Morning
Free daily newsletter — one term, one tool, one tip. Plain English.
Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.
You may also like
- How to Use Perplexity
- Perplexity vs ChatGPT vs Claude
- Perplexity vs Google
- ChatGPT
- Gemini
- Large Language Model
- AI Hallucination
- AI Glossary: 100+ Terms Every Beginner Needs to Know
Two ways to go further
The AI Prompt Library
1,000+ ready-to-use prompts for Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. Stop staring at a blank box.
Get it for $39 →2-Hour Live AI Crash Course
A private, beginner-friendly session across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and the wider landscape.
Book for $125 →