031 AI Tools I Love #3: Perplexity: Search with Citations, Images, and No Ads

Summary

In this episode, Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek introduces Perplexity, an innovative AI tool that seems like a combination of ChatGPT and Google. She discusses its capabilities, including providing rich answers with citations, and highlights its advantages over traditional search engines, such as the absence of advertisements and its user-friendly interface. Joan emphasizes the growing popularity of Perplexity and its potential to revolutionize how we access information online.

Check out Perplexity

New York Times Article Cited "Can This A.I.-Powered Search Engine Replace Google? It Has for Me. A start-up called Perplexity shows what’s possible for a search engine built from scratch with artificial intelligence." Feb 2024

Sound Bites

"Right now, Perplexity has no advertisements."
"Perplexity is fantastic, super easy to use."
"I really recommend trying out Perplexity."

• It provides rich answers with citations, enhancing research capabilities.
• Perplexity has saved users significant time in finding accurate information.
• The tool currently has no advertisements, offering a cleaner user experience.
• Perplexity's user base is rapidly increasing, indicating its popularity.
• The app is available on mobile devices, making it accessible on the go.
• Perplexity is not as effective at editing text compared to other tools.
• There are discussions in the media about Perplexity's potential to replace Google.
• The tool has seen a significant increase in valuation recently.
• Joan highly recommends trying out Perplexity for its innovative features.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Perplexity: A New AI Tool
• 2:52 Features and Benefits of Perplexity
• 4:47 Comparing Perplexity with Traditional Search Engines

Transcript

0:00

Hey folks, here is another episode of AI tools I love. I wanna talk to you about perplexity. Now, some people have heard about perplexity and some have not yet. Maybe you'll be perplexed by this cool episode about perplexity. jokes aside, perplexity is similar. If ChatGPT and Google had a baby, it would probably be perplexity. Perplexity is a tool where you can type into the interface, just like chat.jpt, and ask for something or request information, et cetera. You can also upload files and stuff. Okay, so you're typing in, how old is Oprah? And you'll get an answer about how old Oprah is, the fabulous woman. And also you'll get citations. You'll see images of her face. You will have this rich answer that is not just a certain number. that ChatGPT might give to you. I find that perplexity doesn't hallucinate inaccurate things as much. The fact that it has citations to where it's leveraging data from is so powerful for research methods. You can also click on those citations and be like, I don't know, this Wikipedia link is kind of not so reputable, but I do think this other citation can be really helpful and go down that rabbit hole. As I've researched things in the past year, Perplexity has saved me hours and hours, weeks of time, finding the right citation, the right information that matches up with what I'm looking for. Perplexity also has options where you can upload different content. Right now it has no advertisements, no advertisements. You know when you use Google and it feels like everything that's up there is just ranked on how much the ads are paying Google right now? and then use Google Maps and it's driving you to make sure that you go by that one store that's been a ton of Google ads. I understand, Google wants to make money. I appreciate that. Right now, Perplexity has so many users and right now does not have ads. They do have swag though. I saw these really cute teal mugs that they're selling. I was thinking about getting some for myself, but I have a lot of mugs. I drink a lot of coffee and a lot of tea. I probably don't need any more mugs. But Perplexity. As I talk about their mugs, you can sponsor me, Proplexity. I'll talk about your beautiful mugs. I really, really enjoy. And the number of users on Proplexity, it's been skyrocketing. Proplexity, let me look this up. So as of right now, most people are using it on mobile device. yeah, yeah, you can download it and have Proplexity just like ChatGBT. Maybe even did not know that yet. Let me mention. So if you haven't seen this already, at least I have an iPhone, you can download Chachabi Tea as an app on your phone. So on the road, you can be accessing that. Perplexity also has an app. It's fantastic, super easy to use. And I frequently love asking the exact same thing to both of them and seeing what the outputs are. I also find that Perplexity isn't as good at editing text right now. You know, when I say, you reformat that into bullet points, for example, it's not that great. But there have been New York Times articles saying perplexity is going to eat Google. Yeah, New York Times perplexity. It's just really, really impressive when you use it. New York Times warns that the search engine, if you haven't heard about this one, it's doing cool things. Can AI powered search engines replace Google? February 1st, New York Times. Of course, there are legal things going on and cease and desist. I mean, any of these. They've tripled their valuation in six months to a latest $500 million round of Perplexity AI featured on Business Insider. So again, Perplexity does not pay me a dollar to tell you about this, but if people say, hey, what cool AI tools are you using? And you haven't checked out Perplexity, I really recommend trying this out, perplexity.ai. And they just purchased perplexity.com. We'll see about that. I think they spent a pretty penny on that. Yeah. So check it out. Tell me what you think about it. It looks like they also have a download for desktop. Every time I open it, there's new features, obviously. But as we think about search, as we think about where we get our information from having say, just... having citations and not have it be ad-spaced for me is pretty revolutionary. So I recommend you check it out. Perplexity is an AI tool I love for today and I look forward to talking with you more about these. Cool, have a good day.