Perplexity AI claims to be the world’s first answer engine and it does have the potential to become an ace search engine.
A fierce debate is raging on whether it can dethrone the Great Google and wear the crown of the most popular search engine in the world.
In this FastLinky blog post I’ll give you an overview of this novel search engine and try to find a suitable answer to this debatable question.
What is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity AI is a search engine that uses the Web to source answers to search queries, leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to scour the Web intelligently.
How Perplexity AI differs from Google
But what’s so special about this innovative search approach that prompts people to compare it with a giant of a search engine like Google?
Here are the basic differences between Perplexity and traditional search engines like Google.
| Perplexity AI | |
| Provides concise summary of answers and cites sources of information. | Provides lists of websites containing answers, according to SERP ranking. |
| Doesn’t cover local search results. | Does cover local search results. |
| Uses AI to facilitate contextual conversation. | Does not allow for contextual conversation. |
| Does not have Advertisements. | Displays advertisements |
| Uses Google search ranking to produce appropriate results. | Does not use Perplexity AI to generate search results. |
| Charges 20 USD a month for its Pro version. | Doesn’t charge anything for searching the Web. |
Before we go deeper into our discussion, I think I should clarify the meanings of some relevant technical terms I’ll have to use in this post. This will help you understand me easily.
Some Relevant Technical Terms and Their Meanings
- Perplexity AI: An AI-powered innovative search engine (it calls itself an answer engine) that provides concise summaries in search results with links to the sources of answers.
- Real-Time Search: Real-time search is finding information online as it is being produced. This technique drastically reduces the time gap between production and publication.
- Pplx-7b-online: A proprietary LLM model developed and used by Perplexity for better AI performance.
- Pllx-70b-online: Another proprietary LLM model the answer engine uses for better AI performance.
- Indexing: Traditional search engines like Google collect, organise and store information in a central database (index) to show them to relevant search queries. This process is called indexing.
- Crawling: The process through which a search engine finds, analyses and indexes websites is called crawling.
- Artificial Intelligence: A field of technology used to make intelligent machines that can analyse data, learn from them, make decisions and improve their efficiency through experience.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP): A field of AI that allows machines to process, manipulate and mimic human languages.
- Deep Learning (DL): A field of AI that teaches machines to process data like the human brain.
- Large Language Model (LLM): A type of AI technology that uses deep learning to help machines understand and analyse text.
- Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs): The Pages containing search results that a search engine returns against a search query are called SERPs.
Innovative Features of Perplexity AI
Now let’s take a look at the innovative features of Perplexity AI that separate it from other traditional search engines.
Perplexity AI provides Real-Time Search
This new approach to online searching provides real-time search.
This process gleans information from different platforms like social media, websites etc and produces the most up-to-date information.
It Scans Diverse Sources
Perplexity crawls and gathers information from different sources like research papers, websites and social networking platforms in real time.
This allows it to provide the most updated and relevant information against a search query.
For example, if you ask it to give you a report on global warming, Perplexity AI will scour websites, academic and technical journals, research papers, social networking sites, newspaper articles, blogs and whatnot to glean the most up-to-date information for you.
It Cites Its Sources
Perplexity cites the sources of its information to authenticate the answers it provides.
This is helpful to researchers and academic writers as they can explore those sources for further investigation and referencing.
Provides a Concise Answer
Traditional search engines will suggest relevant sites where you can find the information you need. After that, you will have to explore those sites and find what you want.
But Perplexity will do the scouring of sources for you and compile a conscious answer based on the relevant information and give it to you.
This process will help you get the most relevant and updated information in a single summary, instead of navigating several sites to get what you want.
How Perplexity AI Works
Perplexity AI leverages a mixture of multiple AI models like NLP, LLM and DL to engage users in a conversational and personalised search experience.
The Technology that Powers Perplexity
Perplexity has developed two proprietary LLM models that power its search process namely pplx- 7b-online and pplx-70b-online.
The developers of this answer engine have further fine-tuned the efficacy of these two models using curated training data for optimum performance.
The models use Perplexity’s own indexing, searching and crawling technologies.
These models help the search engine go beyond the training data and intelligently answer time-sensitive queries with relevant and updated information.
Perplexity Aims at Search Intent
The use of this efficient LLM architecture allows Perplexity AI to understand an user’s search intent and needs rather than keywords.
This process provides an accurate summary of what the searcher is actually looking for, not lists of pages where he may find what he wants.
It Engages Users
Using this special LLM architecture and NLP model, Perplexity AI understands the search intent, asks follow-up questions for further clarification and answers queries like a human being.
This technique makes the user feel as if he is interacting with a human being rather than a machine. This feeling fascinates and engages the user.
It Gives Answers Not Links
Instead of providing links to sites that may contain relevant information for a query, Perplexity gives a summarised answer with citations.
Benefits of Using Perplexity AI
Now we’ll look into what benefits this novel search engine yields for its users.
Great User Experience
Using its sophisticated LLM architecture Perplexity AI provides its users an interactive search experience.
The users feel more like interacting with a human being rather than a machine. This greatly enhances this unique search engine’s user experience.
Relevant and Concise Information Summary
The real-time data retrieval technique helps Perplexity crawl diversified web sources and provide its users a concise answer in summary format that resonates well with the users’ search intent.
It Authenticates Information with Citation
Perplexity provides citations to its sources of information, which authenticate its answers to a large extent.
People like researchers and students, who are required to write dissertations or research papers, can use this platform with confidence and use the citations for further investigations.
No Annoying Advertisements
Perplexity AI, unlike other search engines like Google, doesn’t display advertisements along with search results.
This further betters the overall user experience and helps its users fully concentrate on the answers without any distractions.
Demerits of Perplexity AI
Now let’s find out the drawbacks of using Perplexity instead of a traditional search engine like Google.
Frequent Erroneous Search Results
This search engine entirely depends on AI technology which is relatively new and not very well-developed as of now.
As a result, Perplexity AI often provides answers that are either incorrect or inadequate to satisfy search queries.
An Unfamiliar Interface
For a search engine, Perplexity AI has an unusual interface.
People accustomed to using interfaces of familiar search engines like Google and Bing, may find it difficult to adjust to Perplexity’s interface.
A Well-Defined Business Policy
Perplexity loyalists are going ga-ga over the absence of advertisements on the search engine, forgetting the company has a paid pro version with a hefty price tag.
With this well-defined business policy the developers of this search engine have made it clear that unless you pay, you can’t enjoy the full benefits of their platform.
Can Perplexity Beat Google?
Experts are divided into three groups over this topic: Google loyalists, Perplexity loyalists and the don’t-know-can’t-say category.
It is true that Perplexity provides a fresh and innovative online search option. But is this novelty enough to lend a lasting and ever-growing popularity?
We must not forget that even a tech Goliath like Microsoft couldn’t stop Google’s forward march but had to concede defeat in the battle to be the most popular search engine in the world.
In this section, I’ll take up some key metrics for assessing a search engine and show you where these two search engines stand in relation to each of these parameters.
This will help us to decide which one is better.
The Ease of Use
Of all the top search engines, Google’s is the simplest interface. The search bar takes the centrestage.
You can access Google’s other services from the homepage but they are not given any priority in the page design.
This simple interface immediately gives the impression that here’s a search engine that means business. It is well focused and professional looking.
This simple interface is one of the key USPs for this search engine giant. People have grown to love it and put it above other search engines with clumsy cluttered interfaces.
Perplexity AI
Juxtaposed against Google, Perplexity’s interface is pretty complicated with lots of boxes and buttons whose functions are difficult to interpret.
People who are accustomed to using Google may not like this complicated layout.
Habituated to typing a query and getting immediate responses from Google, people may not like pushing so many buttons to get answers to their queries.
Relevance of Search Results
Google’s search algorithm crawls, evaluates and indexes data in a structured and efficient manner.
That’s why pages that rank higher in Google’s SERPs are always relevant and valuable to the keywords they rise up to.
Perplexity AI
Perplexity depends on artificial intelligence entirely and any limitation in AI will automatically reflect in the answers users are provided with by it.
AI has many flaws in it. It cannot process data like a human mind and probably never will. perplexity AI takes information in its database as gospels and provides answers in consonance with them.
That is why Perplexity often comes up with erroneous and irrelevant answers.
The Price Factor
Google is not doing any charity here. But it is not waving a pay-me-or-else threat in its users’ faces.
perplexity AI
Perplexity AI tells its users in certain terms that either they pay it or they don’t get the full benefits of its services.
The Familiarity Factor
Google has set a kind of habit for its users. People automatically go to Google whenever they want some information–important or trivial. And Google serves them well.
Old habits die hard. To dethrone Google you will have to produce something which is not only better but much better.
Perplexity AI
A new search engine with unfamiliar design, not easy to use and with questionable efficiency.
The Verdict
Perplexity AI is an innovative approach to online searching. It has a number of unique features. But it is still underdeveloped due to limitations of the technology that powers it.
While making a decision, a human being uses intelligence and emotions, none of which can be made in laboratories.
I personally think machines will think better and decide better than a man only in science fiction.
Google’s developers use programming, intelligence and emotions to make their algorithms, but Perplexity entirely depends on artificial intelligence, which is imperfect and probably will remain so forever.
Perplexity AI may become a great and popular search engine one day, but to beat Google it will have to incorporate intelligence and emotions in its algorithms.
Until that time, Google will be sitting pretty far above it.
Conclusion
Perplexity AI is an innovative search engine that provides users with conversational interactive experience, concise answers and citations.
It is a refreshing approach to searching and will attract many, especially those who want to explore a topic extensively.
But Perplexity also has several issues like faulty results, clumsy complicated interface and complete dependence on AI models, none of which is well-developed as of now.
With its simple but effective interface, outstanding performance and familiarity, Google will remain far ahead of Perplexity for many years to come.
FAQs.
Q. What is Perplexity AI?
A. Perplexity AI is an innovative search engine that provides concise answers to search questions real-time, using artificial intelligence.
Q. Is Perplexity Good?
A. Yes, it is a good and refreshing experience to use this novel search engine.
Q. What is unique about Perplexity AI?
A. Perplexity runs on an LLM that uses multiple AI models and provides users with concise answers with citation to their search questions instead of links to ranked pages like Google.
Q. Is Perplexity AI better than Google?
A. No, it is not. Not yet. Probably never will be.
