I ditched Google for Perplexity for a month — and I don't think I can go back
Like many people, I have naturally defaulted to Google as my search engine of choice. It's not through a lack of trying out the competition. I've used DuckDuckGo, Brave, and a selection of competitors, but the lure of different unique selling points has never managed to pry me away from the ease of Google.
However, there is a newer and potentially more interesting competitor that could change all of that. Perplexity is part of the recent wave of AI chatbots that have emerged in recent years, except it's slightly different.
Where ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have all positioned themselves as chatbots to help answer your never-ending list of questions and tasks, Perplexity is coming for the search engines, offering an AI-powered approach to search.
It uses AI models and sources from the internet to provide answers to your queries. Think of this as a melting pot between Google and ChatGPT, offering detailed answers to every thought that crosses your mind.
So, how did I find Perplexity, and can it replace Google in my life? I put Google away and switched over to Perplexity for a month to see if it really is the future.
Perplexity operates in a very similar manner to Google's AI overview. Ask it a question and it will provide a detailed response, offering a full answer, as well as a list of sources to show where its information has come from. You can even see the route it took to complete your request.
Perplexity thrives when you need a lot of information. I found it especially useful in a few instances — firstly, buying advice.
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'Is an Oura subscription worth it?' has been a question that's been on my mind since digging an old Oura ring out of my desk in an effort to become a healthy member of society.
Perplexity offered me a page-long answer, covering the benefits, costs, and considerations, a summary, and related questions for me to ask. After clicking through a few related questions, I was fully clued in on everything I needed to know.
Equally, this style of search engine is great for advice on how to do things. By searching through authority hobby sites, Reddit forums and expert guides, Perplexity helped me with confusing garden tasks, fixing things around my house, and to work out spice blends for cooking.
Outside of search functions, Perplexity also offers a Discover tool. This searches the internet for big news stories and interesting topics that are current. What I especially like about this is that Perplexity will scan multiple sources for this, compiling a report of what has happened with an array of information sources.
With the introduction of Google AI overview, Perplexity isn't as unique compared to Google as it once was. I'd argue that Perplexity does the job better and is more intuitive, but not necessarily drastically different.
However, Perplexity does blend the worlds of AI and search in other ways. One of its best features is its inclusion of deep research. This is a feature popping up more and more in AI, taking on more complicated research tasks while also putting more time and effort into its thinking.
This is a great replacement for the rabbit holes you sometimes have to go down with Google. I often found myself able to solve all of the questions I had in one go, where before I would have been poring through Wikipedia pages and articles.
Perplexity also offers other features like Spaces, where you can turn the AI model into a super-personalized source. For example, you could load it with papers and articles about the Moon and have the Space be an incredibly specific responder on this topic.
This is especially useful for incredibly niche topics that ChatGPT is too focused for. For example, give it a selection of interviews on a famous individual, and Perplexity can answer questions only using information from these interviews.
While it's a fun feature (and very similar to what you get from Google's NotebookLM), it isn't one that I've actually ended up using much. This feels best matched to students or those trying to study up on very niche subjects.
One feature of Perplexity that stands out is the ability to change AI models. OpenAI, Claude and Grok all have models available via Perplexity, letting you change things up to what works best with your query.
Okay, so the drawbacks. Even though Perplexity is heavily backed by online sources, it can still make the mistake that we see most often with AI. Hallucinations, or in other words, when an AI makes a mistake do still happen. In the time I've been using Perplexity as my main search engine, I haven't seen any, but it is a risk that needs to be kept in mind.
More importantly, compared to Google, Perplexity can't complete on your commands. For example, while it can tell you the directions to get somewhere, it has to outsource showing a map to Google.
Ask for a location, and Perplexity will give you the address, but that's the limit. The same happens with booking anything or making a purchase.
Compared to Google, this is the major issue with Perplexity: it can only get you so far. This is especially notable when you're trying to do anything that requires a second step past the search engine.
Often times, I found myself having to use Google anyway because I would hit a roadblock with how far Perplexity could take me.
This is a problem Perplexity and other AI chatbots are attempting to remedy, adding in-app purchasing to their skillsets and potentially, down the line, we could see in-app bookings and maps.
However, for now, Perplexity quite often has to hand back to Google anyway to complete these kind of tasks.
This has had me split between the two. Now, I quite often use Perplexity for queries that don't require another step. This includes reviews of products, tips on how to do things and queries about the world.
However, if I'm looking to buy something, get somewhere or book anything, Perplexity just isn't there yet.
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