"GETTING" THE QUESTION
Perplexity’s answer engine harnesses advanced natural language processing capabilities to parse through the user’s query, analyzing its context and subtle nuances to extract its real meaning and intent.
CHECKING THE WEB
The engine locates the most relevant web pages or articles from its web index, then selects specific content snippets within them to provide context around the user’s question.
WHEN YOU GOOGLE THE TERM PERPLEXITY AI." YOU GET A FAMILIAR-LOOKING RESPONSE: A LINK TO THE COMPANY'S WEBSITE FOLLOWED BY FOUR OTHER RELATED POPULAR QUERIES, A HANDFUL OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES, RELATED SEARCHES, AND AN ENDLESS SCROLL OF LINKS THAT IF PRINTED OUT MIGHT EXTEND FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO AUSTIN.
PERPLEXITY'S ANSWER MACHINE, HOWEVER, PROVIDES A VERY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE: ENTERING THE PHRASE "WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT PERPLEXITY AI? YIELDS SEVERAL LINKS TO CREDIBLE-LOOKING ARTICLES AND RELEVANT INFORMATION FROM THE COMPANY'S WEBSITE, FOLLOWED BY AN ARTICULATE AND NEATLY ORGANIZED BRIEF OVERVIEW.
And therein lies the allure. Perplexity is easy, it’s elegant, it’s specific. Eighteen months after the online tool (then called Ask) first launched, it’s become one of the buzziest products in the buzziest of all tech sectors—generative AI. Journalist and educator Jeremy Caplan described Perplexity as “like having a smart assistant who not only finds the book you’re looking for in a vast library but opens it to the exact page that has the information you need. Google just points you toward potentially relevant shelves.”
Perplexity’s growing popularity illustrates a seismic shift in the tech industry. When real people (not just
