A newcomer to the bubbling world of AI, Perplexity AI stands out for its mix of genres, both search engine and conversational agent. Plus, it’s free and you don’t need to create an account to use it.
AIs continue to flood the internet since ChatGPT, OpenAI’s incredible chatbot, was unveiled to the general public a few months ago. Between Bing, Bard, DALL-E, Midjourney and others, not to mention the AI-enhanced functions that we see popping up everywhere, we don’t know where to turn! And it is in this arena where tech giants compete that newcomers are trying to find a place with a different approach. This is particularly the case of Perplexity AI, which could be presented as a “conversational search engine”, which offers a rather original mixture of genres, with rather astonishing results thanks to access to the Web. Above all, there is no need to create an account to take advantage of it: it can be used for free, without consideration – at least, for the moment. It can be accessed via a web browser, but also as an iOS application – via the App Store – or an extension for Google Chrome. So, is it worth it?
Perplexity AI: a sourced and updated search engine
Based on GPT-3, the old language model of OpenAI, Perplexity AI is able to write synthetic and simple answers to questions asked in natural language, such as ChatGPT. The difference is that it accesses the web, which allows it to deal with current topics, with recent information, indicating its sources with links to consult them. We were thus able to ask him who had succeeded Philippe Martinez at the head of the CGT: he answered correctly, presenting Sophie Binet, and recalling her career when we asked her for details, proof that it is up to date. !
The operation of Perplexity AI is extremely simple. Just write a query in the search bar provided for this purpose. Then the AI generates a response in the form of a short paragraph with the various sources gathered from the web. Just click on it to check for yourself and, why not, get more information on the issue. These sources are also displayed below the chat frame as a list. The tool also offers other related questions to dig deeper into the subject. The quality of the answers varies depending on the topics covered, and some are cut off for no reason – without the ending. But Perplexity AI’s field of action is quite broad, as we have seen by training it on very different themes (technology, music, physics, literature, philosophy, cooking, humor, etc.). The AI even says it is ready to learn, if it is given examples and explanations to feed it!
Even if it is only in its infancy, Perplexity AI has several assets that distinguish it from the tenors of the sector. First, its use is completely free, unlike ChatGPT-4, accessible only via a paid subscription. Then, it is ad-free, unlike Bing. Above all, it does not require the creation of an account. It also offers chat history and voice search feature on iPhone. Finally, the responses are fast, unlike OpenAI’s AI, which often crashes. The company has just raised $25 million in financing, which should help it continue its development. He will need it, because the tool must however deal with serious competitors like Microsoft and Google who have a much greater strike force…