I’ve been using Perplexity for research for over a year now. It has fundamentally changed how I find information online.

The premise is simple: instead of giving you links to pages that might contain your answer, Perplexity reads those pages and gives you the answer directly—with citations so you can verify.

This sounds incremental. In practice, it’s transformative.

How Perplexity Works

Ask Perplexity a question in natural language. The AI searches the web in real-time, reads relevant sources, synthesizes the information, and responds with an answer that cites its sources.

“What’s the current state of fusion energy research?”

Perplexity returns a comprehensive summary covering recent breakthroughs, remaining challenges, major projects, and timeline estimates—with numbered citations linking to Nature articles, research institution pages, and news coverage.

Click any citation to see the source. Verify the AI’s claims. Dig deeper on specific points.

This workflow eliminates the frustrating loop of traditional search: query → scan results → click link → scan page → realize it doesn’t answer your question → go back → try different link → repeat.

Perplexity collapses that into: ask → get answer → verify if needed.

Free vs. Pro

Perplexity Free offers unlimited Quick searches using their standard model. These handle most queries well and include web access.

Perplexity Pro ($20/month) adds:

• Pro searches with GPT-4 and Claude models
• Longer, more detailed responses
• File upload and analysis
• Higher daily limits on Pro searches
• Image generation

The free tier is genuinely useful—not a crippled demo. For casual research, it’s sufficient. Pro is worth it for heavy users who need deeper analysis and want to use the most capable models.

Where Perplexity Excels

Current events and recent information. Because Perplexity searches in real-time, it has access to news from today. ChatGPT’s knowledge cutoff means it can’t answer questions about recent events; Perplexity can.

Factual research with citations. Need information you can verify and cite? Perplexity’s sourced responses provide exactly that. Academic research, journalism, due diligence—any context where “because AI said so” isn’t sufficient.

Comparison and synthesis. “What are the differences between X and Y?” questions work beautifully. Perplexity aggregates information from multiple sources into coherent comparisons.

Technical learning. Exploring unfamiliar topics becomes faster. Ask questions, get explanations, follow citations to go deeper. The cycle of learning accelerates.

Quick fact verification. Something sounds wrong? Ask Perplexity. The sourced response either confirms or corrects in seconds.

The Focus Feature

Perplexity offers “Focus” modes that constrain searches to specific source types:

• All: Default, searches everything
• Academic: Searches academic papers and research
• Writing: Optimized for generating text
• Wolfram: Uses Wolfram Alpha for math and science
• YouTube: Searches and summarizes video content
• Reddit: Searches Reddit discussions

Academic Focus is particularly valuable for research. Responses cite papers from arXiv, PubMed, and academic journals rather than news articles and blog posts.

YouTube Focus surprises people—Perplexity watches videos (via transcripts) and answers questions about their content. “What does [expert] say about [topic] in this video?” works.

Perplexity vs. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is better for creative work, coding, and extended conversations. Its memory across a session enables collaborative work.

Perplexity is better for research and fact-finding. The real-time web access and citations make it trustworthy in ways ChatGPT isn’t.

I use both daily. ChatGPT for writing, analysis, and coding. Perplexity for research, fact-checking, and learning about unfamiliar topics.

The tools complement rather than compete. ChatGPT’s browsing feature has improved, but Perplexity’s search integration is still more sophisticated.

Perplexity vs. Google Search

This is the real comparison. Perplexity is gunning for Google’s core use case.

Google gives you links to potential answers. You do the work of reading and synthesizing.

Perplexity gives you answers with links to sources. The AI does the reading; you do the verification if needed.

For straightforward queries, Perplexity is faster and more efficient. “What time does [business] close?” or “How do I [accomplish task]?” get direct answers.

For browsing and discovery—when you don’t know exactly what you want—Google’s results page still works better. Sometimes you need to see options, not answers.

I’ve shifted maybe 60% of my searches to Perplexity. Google handles the rest.

Collections and Organization

Perplexity lets you organize searches into Collections—essentially folders for your research threads.

Working on a project? Create a Collection. All related searches stay organized. Reference previous queries. Build on earlier findings.

This feature matters for ongoing research. Instead of losing your query history, you maintain organized records of what you’ve learned.

Mobile Experience

Perplexity’s mobile app is excellent—one of the better AI apps available.

The voice input works well for spoken questions. Responses are formatted for mobile reading. The experience doesn’t feel like a compromised desktop port.

I use Perplexity on my phone constantly. Quick questions while reading, fact-checking during conversations, looking up information on the go.

Limitations

Hallucinations still happen. The AI sometimes misreads sources or makes incorrect inferences. Citations help you catch errors, but they don’t prevent them. Verify important information.

Source quality varies. Perplexity searches the web, which includes unreliable sources. The AI tries to prioritize quality, but garbage sources sometimes appear.

Complex reasoning has limits. Perplexity synthesizes information well but doesn’t reason deeply about it. For analysis requiring judgment and inference, general AI tools are better.

Can’t access paywalled content. Many high-quality sources are behind paywalls. Perplexity can’t read them, which limits answer quality for topics where the best information isn’t freely available.

The Verdict

Perplexity AI is the most significant search innovation in years. The answer-first, sources-included approach is how we should have been finding information all along.

For research, fact-checking, and learning about unfamiliar topics, Perplexity is now my default tool. The time savings are substantial.

The free tier is legitimately useful—try it before committing to Pro. But Pro’s access to better models and higher limits is worth it for heavy users.

Rating: 9/10. A genuinely new way to interact with information online. Not perfect—hallucinations and source quality remain concerns—but dramatically better than the traditional search experience.

If you do any kind of research, professional or personal, try Perplexity for a week. Most people don’t go back to Google-first searching.

The tool has limitations, but the core experience of asking questions and getting sourced answers is so good that it’s reshaped how I work. That’s rare.