Perplexity Is Leading the AI Search Revolution. Here’s How.

Google has been the dominant search engine for decades. But a new player, Perplexity, is reimagining what a search engine can be, using artificial intelligence to generate naturally worded responses to user queries instead of the standard list of blue links.

By facilitating dynamic conversations between search engine and user, Perplexity has created a more intuitive and interactive way to find information online. This fresh approach has caught the attention of some very prominent backers, including Softbank Vision Fund, OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA, to name a few. And the site is catching on fast — attracting more than 20 million users in just a few short years.

So, what exactly is Perplexity? What’s driving the platform’s rapid growth? And what could this growth ultimately mean for the future of search? Let’s break it down. 

What Is Perplexity?

Perplexity is an AI search engine that responds to user queries with detailed, thoroughly researched, naturally worded text answers. It can surf the web, inform its responses with the latest sources and generate citations for users to reference, setting it apart from traditional search engines that produce a list of page links in response to queries. 

Because of its conversational approach to addressing questions, Perplexity has been likened more to a chatbot like ChatGPT — a comparison aided by the fact that these products were released just weeks apart in 2022. But it isn’t meant to follow in the footsteps of chatbots or popular search engines like Google. Instead, it has carved out space between these two categories and inspired a new wave of tools known as “answer engines.” 

“If Perplexity hadn’t grown in popularity right after ChatGPT, I don’t know if this whole answers engine movement would have really started,” Jordan Wilson, founder of media and consulting company Everyday AI, told Built In. “Because they were one of the first that, when you went on and you put in a query, there was full transparency. You could actually see where it was pulling the citations from.”

Key Features of Perplexity 

While major search engines have jumped on the answer engine bandwagon, Perplexity still has plenty of features that make it a unique option, such as: 

• Multiple Model Offerings: Perplexity lets users pivot between large language models like GPT-4.1, Claude 4.0 Sonnet and Grok 3 Beta to refine their searches.
• Follow-Up Questions: Perplexity suggests related questions after each query, and it handles follow-up questions well by retaining context from the previous query.
• Organizational Tools: Perplexity allows users to save their conversations or queries as Threads, which can be arranged into Spaces based on specific projects or topics. 
• Multimodal Abilities: Text is still its primary format, but Perplexity can also process inputs and outputs for images and audio. 
• Convenient Access: Perplexity is free to use without an account, although users need to sign up for a free account or a paid plan like Perplexity Pro for more advanced features.

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How Does Perplexity Work?

To deliver accurate and well-informed responses, Perplexity follows a series of steps that involves carefully combing through online sources and tracking where it pulls insights from.

1. Processing a Question 

Using natural language processing, Perplexity breaks down a query into individual tokens like adjectives, nouns and verbs. It then uses semantic rules to detect more complex elements like concepts, entities and intent. These steps help Perplexity understand the meaning behind a question, avoid misinterpretations and provide more accurate responses.

2. Searching the Web

After processing the query, Perplexity searches the internet for related articles, websites and research papers, among other sources. It uses semantic search, identifying relevant articles even if they don’t exactly match keywords in the query. Perplexity assesses each source based on traits like credibility and quality to determine which ones it should use to address the query. 

3. Generating a Response

A large language model is fed content from the different sources, removing irrelevant or repetitive data and generating a concise, easy-to-understand response. During this process, the LLM monitors where it gathers information from, creating citations for each source to help users better understand how the model arrived at a given answer. 

4. Anticipating Follow-Up Questions

Perplexity stores these inputs and its responses to form a conversation history, equipping it with contextual memory. This means a user can ask follow-up questions without having to repeat their original query each time. Updates to Perplexity’s memory capacity also enable it to retain context from previous conversations, resulting in more personalized interactions. 

How to Use Perplexity 

Perplexity is designed to be easily accessible and user-friendly. Here’s how you can start using the tool: 

1. Visit the Perplexity Website

Visit Perplexity’s website at perplexity.ai to enter queries for free without an account. To access more advanced features, sign up for a free account or a paid plan. You can also download Perplexity’s mobile app in the App Store or Google Play Store to get started. 

2. Enter a Question

Once you’re on Perplexity’s website or app, just type a question into the search bar. Phrase it as if you were talking to another person, using full sentences. For example, “What is a capybara?” is better than “Capybara?” Perplexity can handle everything from basic queries to questions on more complicated subjects. 

3. Review the Citations

Perplexity will generate a list of citations after you enter your query. Click on the “Sources” and “Steps” tabs at the top of the page to review the citations. This way, you can see where Perplexity is getting its answer from and double-check for accuracy.

4. Submit Follow-Up Questions

Refine your search if needed. You might ask, “Can you rephrase your answer using plain language?” or “Can you tell me more about where you got your answer from?” Perplexity remembers previous queries, so it can process and respond to follow-up questions.

5. Organize Queries in Spaces

If you plan on using Perplexity regularly, Spaces is a helpful feature for organizing conversations (Threads) according to projects or topics. However, it requires a free account. After signing up, click on the “Spaces” tab in the left side bar to begin arranging your Threads.

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Common Use Cases of Perplexity

Perplexity can be used in a wide variety of ways beyond just answering basic search queries. 

Individual Learning

Perplexity is an answer engine, making it great for learning more about a topic. It can answer basic questions like, “What are the health benefits of walking every day?” or “Where is Guam located?” It can also handle more complex queries such as, “What is machine learning?” A list of citations enables further exploration of relevant sources. 

Real-Time Updates 

Because Perplexity can connect to and compile data from the internet, it can gather real-time updates on various activities. Perplexity users can get the latest information when tracking developing storms, keeping up with live scores from sporting events, monitoring flight prices and following election results.

Academic Research

Perplexity’s ability to supplement its responses with citations can accelerate the research process, allowing academics to find essays, articles and pieces for gathering more insights. Through the Perplexity Pro plan, researchers can also use Copilot to conduct more in-depth searches and receive summaries of papers for faster analysis. 

News Analysis

When asked about a current event, Perplexity pulls information from a range of articles to provide different perspectives on a given topic. Perplexity can summarize articles and reports as well, making it easier to digest the main ideas and takeaways without having to scroll through the whole piece. 

Market Research

As a tool that can quickly collect real-time data, Perplexity can deliver instant insights on companies’ performance, product pricing, consumer buying habits and other industry trends. It can also summarize content and data to reveal key findings, so users can automate data analysis and act on data-driven decisions.

“Perplexity is such a better experience when you’re trying to actually make a decision, and you’re trying to get a variety of sources and you’re trying to get beyond that base-level knowledge,” Michael Buckbee, co-founder of AI brand monitoring company Knowatoa, told Built In.

Challenges of Using Perplexity

Perplexity has elevated the search engine field with AI, but it has also introduced new problems that need to be resolved.

Accuracy Issues

When referencing online content to inform its responses, Perplexity may venture further than the first page of results, especially with certain plans or research modes. This raises concerns around whether Perplexity uses reliable sources to answer each query. In addition, the way Perplexity incorporates other AI models can lead to more inaccuracies and mistakes. 

“Perplexity adds its own search retrieval and summarization layers on top of whichever base model that you choose,” Wilson said. “That alone can introduce errors. You can lose nuance, or you can just misinterpret the context, compared to just using the original model in its pure form.”

Citation Concerns 

In a 2025 study, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism tested eight generative search tools — including Perplexity and Perplexity Pro — and their ability to accurately cite sources. It found that Perplexity incorrectly answered more than a third of queries, and Perplexity Pro had an even higher error rate than the free version. Although Perplexity has real-time access to online content and provides citations, it has a long way to go in terms of accuracy. 

Multimodal Limitations

While Perplexity does have some multimodal capabilities, they are still a work in progress. For instance, Perplexity needs a text transcript to aid it in summarizing videos or audio. Overall, it struggles with analyzing visual data and is outperformed by tools specifically designed for computer vision tasks. 

Copyright Conflicts 

Like other AI companies, Perplexity has come under fire for possible copyright infringement. In 2024, Forbes accused Perplexity of “willful infringement” by using the company’s text and images for content generation. Later that year, Dow Jones and the New York Post would follow suit, arguing that Perplexity committed “illegal copying” of their content. However, Perplexity has pushed back against claims that it copies the works of publishers. 

“Perplexity only post-trains models, so we do not train on anyone’s data,” Jesse Dwyer, Head of Communications at Perplexity, told Built In. “Furthermore, our post-training is focused on one thing: Accuracy. This actually makes us a natural partner for publishers over our shared values of truth, and making it available to more people.”

In the meantime, disagreements between publishers and Perplexity are heating up, with the BBC being the latest company to threaten legal action against Perplexity.

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Perplexity’s Future Outlook

Perplexity is gaining momentum through its upcoming products and partnerships, setting itself up to become a pivotal force in the search engine ecosystem. 

Enhancing the Search Experience

Users will be able to do even more with Perplexity’s AI search engine, thanks to a slate of new tools. In February 2025, Perplexity launched a Deep Research mode that can conduct supercharged searches to generate a report after reviewing hundreds of sources. Just a couple months later, the company released Perplexity Labs, which can create spreadsheets, reports, dashboards and web apps. 

As for Perplexity’s mobile app, iOS users can now access Perplexity’s AI voice assistant and entrust it with basic tasks like booking dinner reservations and drafting emails. Based on the initial announcement, Android users shouldn’t have to wait too long either. Perplexity’s AI assistant isn’t perfect by any means, but with Apple continuing to delay updates to Siri and Apple Intelligence, it has a real shot at becoming the go-to assistant for iOS users down the road.

Challenging Google on Multiple Fronts

Perplexity made waves when it teased the release of a web browser with agentic capabilities known as Comet. The move pits Perplexity against Google’s Chrome browser, although Comet would compete with other AI-based browsers as well. Still, the focus is on the simmering rivalry between Google and Perplexity, especially after Google subpoenaed Perplexity as part of its antitrust trial. 

The friction between Google and Perplexity reflects the tug-of-war between the old guard and the newcomers in the SEO sphere. In fact, Perplexity’s Dwyer suggests that Google’s very foundation puts it at odds with Perplexity, which has disrupted the search industry in unprecedented ways with its use of AI. 

“Google’s entire business model is based on driving traffic to publishers — paid via advertising and unpaid via the SEO industry that buttresses the need for paid placement. In other words, Google is an intermediary,” Dwyer said. “When you think of it this way, it’s not so much that Perplexity is a threat to Google’s dominance (it is), it’s that Google’s own business model is the biggest threat to its dominance.”

Investing in More Funding Channels

With steady streams of funding, Perplexity is positioning itself to remain a long-term player in search and beyond. The company closed a pair of $500 million funding rounds in December 2024 and May 2025, bringing its total valuation to $14 billion. Perplexity’s CEO Aravind Srinivas also announced that the platform now has 22 million active users and $100 million in annual recurring revenue, promising even more growth to come. 

Perplexity has begun exploring other avenues for additional revenue as well. At the end of 2024, it introduced ads to its platform, with sponsored queries appearing under the “Related” section. And this experiment could get a boost from the Comet web browser, which could gather user data outside the Perplexity app to develop even more personalized ads and transform Perplexity’s emerging ads business into a major source of profit. 

Building a Network of Partnerships

In response to copyright concerns, Perplexity established a publisher’s program in 2024 that shares revenue produced from Perplexity’s AI-generated content among Perplexity and its publisher partners. The program has accepted more members since its initial launch, including Adweek and the Los Angeles Times. 

Meanwhile, Perplexity’s success has caught the attention of larger tech companies looking for a competitive edge. Samsung is reportedly considering making Perplexity the default AI assistant on its upcoming Galaxy S26 lineup, potentially replacing Gemini, which would be a major blow to Google. Apple is also exploring ways to bring AI search engines like Perplexity into Safari, and there are even rumors that it may attempt to buy Perplexity outright. 

These developments emphasize that the search engine landscape is shifting toward a greater focus on AI — putting Perplexity in prime position to influence how the search industry unfolds for the foreseeable future.

“The big thing that AI has unlocked is that search can now sort of live anywhere,” Buckbee said. “Search is less of the destination and more just a feature that’s being baked into everything. And Perplexity is approaching that from the perspective of, ‘We will build more products around this and do more things that are helpful in general.’”

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