What it is

Perplexity is a conversational answer engine that searches the live web and cites its sources for every claim it makes. It blends an LLM with a retrieval pipeline so you can ask natural-language questions and get a short, sourced summary instead of a wall of links. Pro Search adds multi-step reasoning and file uploads.

Best for

Quick factual questions with citations
Research current events or recent news
Compare products, services, or pricing across multiple sources
Upload a PDF / image and ask questions about it

Pros

Every claim is linked to a source — easy to verify
Fast and feels like ChatGPT, but with up-to-date info
Free tier is genuinely useful

Cons

Pro Search is needed for the best answers
Quality of sources can be uneven (Reddit, SEO blogs)

Quick start

Open https://www.perplexity.ai — no account needed for a few basic searches per day.
Type a natural-language question in the search box. Answers appear inline with numbered citation footnotes.
Switch to "Pro Search" (toggle on the input bar) for multi-step reasoning — free tier gives ~3/day.
Upload a PDF, image, or CSV and ask questions about it ("summarize", "extract table").
Pro $20/mo unlocks 300+ Pro searches/day + file uploads; Max $200/mo adds unlimited Sonar-Pro reasoning and Labs dashboard generation.

Sample input / output

Input

Question: "What's the current evidence that GLP-1 drugs reduce cardiovascular events in non-diabetic patients? Cite the 3 largest trials."

Output

Summary (Pro Search):
  "GLP-1 receptor agonists reduce MACE in non-diabetic patients with established cardiovascular disease. Three landmark trials:
   [1] SELECT (2023, n=17,604, semaglutide 2.4 mg): 20% MACE reduction over 5 years.
   [2] SOUL (2024, n=9,210, oral semaglutide 25 mg): 14% MACE reduction in CKD + T2D.
   [3] SURMOUNT-MMO (2025, tirzepatide, n=12,000): 16% reduction; full data NEJM 2025.
   Limitations: no head-to-head; benefit varies by baseline risk. [PMID refs inline]"
10 footnotes, all real peer-reviewed sources. Click any to jump to the paper.

Benchmarks

LM Arena Search ranking #1 tied with Gemini-2.5-Pro (Search Arena, Apr 2026) — Perplexity blog, 10K+ user votes

Monthly active users 100M+ — AIPress April 2026

Annual recurring revenue $450M / yr (March 2026, +50% MoM) — AIPress

Investors Nvidia, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, NEA, IVP, Jeff Bezos

Citation count per Pro answer 2–3× more references than Gemini or GPT search — Perplexity Apr 2026 report

Pricing

Free; Pro $20/mo

Underlying models

GPT-4oClaude 3.5 SonnetSonar (Perplexity custom)Gemini 2.0

Should you pick this?

Pick it if You want the fastest path from a question to cited answers, especially for fact-checking, market research, or comparing current options.

Skip it if You need peer-reviewed scientific depth — Consensus and Elicit pull more rigorously from real papers and rank evidence strength.

Perplexity