Perplexity Interactive Demo
Explore a product demo of Perplexity, a free AI-powered search engine. It searches the internet in real-time, identifies relevant sources, and generates high-quality answers.
What is Perplexity?
Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that combines large language models with real-time web search to provide accurate, cited answers to any question. Launched in 2022, Perplexity has rapidly grown to over 10 million monthly active users who prefer it to traditional search for research-intensive questions.
Unlike ChatGPT (which has a knowledge cutoff), Perplexity searches the live web for every query and presents a synthesized answer with numbered source citations that users can verify. This makes it particularly valuable for questions about current events, up-to-date technical documentation, and recent research.
Perplexity Pro adds GPT-4 and Claude model access, unlimited Pro searches, image generation, and the ability to upload files for analysis. Perplexity's Spaces feature lets teams create shared research environments with custom AI personas and shared document context.
How to get started with Perplexity
- 1
Ask your first question
Go to perplexity.ai and type any question. Perplexity searches the web in real time and synthesizes a cited answer. Click any citation number to see the original source.
- 2
Use follow-up questions
After an answer, ask follow-up questions in the same thread. Perplexity maintains context across the conversation. This is powerful for deep research on a topic — start broad, then drill down.
- 3
Focus searches with Source filters
Use the Focus options to restrict search sources: Academic (research papers), YouTube (video content), Reddit (community discussions), or specific websites. This improves answer quality for specific research types.
- 4
Upload files for analysis
With a Pro account, upload PDFs, spreadsheets, or images and ask questions about them. Perplexity analyzes the document alongside web sources to give contextualized answers.
- 5
Create Spaces for team research
Create a Space to share a research environment with your team. Add documents, set a custom AI instruction, and collaboratively build a knowledge base. Ideal for ongoing research projects.
Explore more Perplexity guides
Step-by-step interactive demos and tutorials for Perplexity.
Who is Perplexity most useful for?
Researchers and analysts who need to quickly synthesize information from multiple sources with citations they can verify. Use Supademo to document your team's Perplexity research workflows — showing how to structure queries, use follow-up questions, and export research for reports.
Content creators and marketers who need current information for articles, scripts, and campaigns. Pair Perplexity's research with Supademo by creating interactive product demos that incorporate up-to-date competitive intelligence.
Business professionals who need quick, reliable answers during meetings, proposal writing, or market research. Create Supademo guides of your team's AI research workflows to help less tech-savvy team members get more value from AI tools.
Developers and technical teams who need answers to programming questions with citations to current documentation. Perplexity's code-focused queries surface current Stack Overflow answers and official docs.
Looking for alternatives to Perplexity?
Here are four tools worth evaluating depending on your needs.
Better for creative tasks, coding, and long-form writing. ChatGPT web browsing is available on Plus, but Perplexity's search integration is tighter and more reliably cited.
View demo →
Better for long-document analysis and reasoning tasks. No real-time web search by default. Perplexity is better for current information; Claude is better for analyzing large existing documents.
View demo →
Returns a list of links for you to read and synthesize yourself. Perplexity synthesizes the answer for you with citations. For simple queries, Google is faster. For research-heavy questions, Perplexity saves time.
Another AI search engine with source customization and app integrations. Smaller user base and citation database. Perplexity has better answer quality and source depth.
FAQs on Perplexity
Commonly asked questions about Perplexity. Have more? Reach out and our team will be happy to help.
Is Perplexity free?
Yes. Perplexity's free plan includes unlimited searches with standard AI models. Perplexity Pro ($20/month) adds GPT-4 and Claude model selection, unlimited Pro searches, file uploads, and image generation.
How does Perplexity cite its sources?
Perplexity includes numbered citations in its answers. Each number corresponds to a source listed below the answer. Clicking a citation opens the original web page. This lets users verify claims and go deeper into primary sources.
Is Perplexity accurate?
Perplexity is generally more accurate than LLMs without web access because it retrieves current information rather than relying on training data. However, its synthesis can still contain errors. Always verify important claims against the cited primary sources.
What is the difference between Perplexity and Google?
Google returns a list of links and a brief AI Overview. Perplexity reads the sources and synthesizes a direct answer with citations. For research tasks requiring synthesis across multiple sources, Perplexity is significantly faster.
Can Perplexity access paywalled content?
No. Perplexity can only access publicly available web content. Paywalled articles, private databases, and login-required sites are not accessible. For academic papers, Perplexity's Academic focus mode searches open-access databases.
What are Perplexity Spaces?
Spaces are shared research environments where teams can collaborate on a topic. Each Space has its own document library, custom AI instructions, and shared conversation history. Useful for ongoing research projects and knowledge management.