What Perplexity is
Perplexity AI, founded in 2022 in San Francisco, built its name on one idea: combine a search engine with a language model and show the sources. Each answer comes with numbered citations you can click to read the original page. Follow-up questions keep the context, so a search becomes a conversation.
Perplexity does not rely on one AI company. It runs its own Sonar models and, on paid plans, lets you choose top models from other companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Over 2025 and 2026 it added a browser (Comet), an agent that can carry out tasks (Perplexity Computer), and tools to create files and small apps.
Key features
Answers with sources
The standard search gives a short answer with citations. You can narrow the sources to academic papers, social discussions or financial filings, and attach your own files to ask about them.
Pro Search and Research
Pro Search runs several searches and reasons about the results before answering. Research (formerly Deep Research) goes further: it reads many sources over a few minutes and produces a long report. Free users get a few Pro Searches a day and one Research query a month.
Create files and apps
Formerly called Labs, this turns a request into a spreadsheet, a report, a dashboard or a simple web app, drawing on searches. Paid plans have monthly limits.
Spaces and projects
Spaces group searches, files and instructions on a topic, and can be shared with others, which is handy for ongoing research.
Comet browser and Perplexity Computer
Comet is a Chromium-based browser with the Perplexity assistant in a sidebar. It can summarize open tabs, compare pages and take multi-step actions such as filling in forms. Comet became free to download in 2026, with more assistant usage on paid plans. Perplexity Computer is an agent that works through longer tasks on its own; it started on Max and has since reached Pro with smaller allowances.
Pricing (as of October 2026)
Perplexity's plans page does not show prices to automated checks. Enterprise and education prices below come from Perplexity's help center; Pro and Max prices are the figures consistently reported by pricing trackers in 2026. Confirm in the app before paying.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Basic searches, about 3 Pro Searches a day, 1 Research query a month, limited uploads. |
| Pro | $20/month or $200/year (reported) | Extended Pro Search and Research, choice of advanced models, image and video generation, more uploads, Comet assistant queries. |
| Education Pro | $10/month with student or educator verification | Pro features plus Learn Mode and Perplexity Computer access. |
| Max | $200/month or $2,000/year (reported) | The highest limits, Perplexity Computer credits, early access to new products. |
| Enterprise Pro | $40/seat/month or $400/seat/year | Pro features, data never used for training, seat management, shared projects. 400 Pro Searches a week, 50 Research queries a month. |
| Enterprise Max | Reported at $325/seat/month | Ten times the Enterprise Pro limits, SCIM, audit logs, configurable retention. |
Perplexity's developer API is billed separately by usage.
Strengths
- Citations by default. Every answer links to sources, which makes checking claims much faster than with a chatbot that answers from memory.
- Fast research. Research reports pull together many sources in minutes, a common reason users give for paying.
- Model choice. Paid users can pick between models from several companies inside one subscription.
- A useful free plan. Unlimited basic searches cover most casual use.
- Up-to-date answers. Because it searches live, it handles current events better than a model's built-in knowledge.
Weaknesses
- Citations are not proof. Users regularly report answers where a cited page does not quite say what the summary claims, or where weak sources are mixed in with good ones.
- Less suited to long writing or coding. It can do both, but general assistants handle drafting, editing and programming better.
- Plans and limits change often. Features have moved between tiers several times, and the help center's own descriptions of limits are not always consistent.
- Publisher disputes. Several news publishers, including Dow Jones and The New York Times, have sued Perplexity over how it uses their content. That does not affect your answers directly, but it is worth knowing.
- Agent trust. Letting Comet act in logged-in websites raises the usual risks of browser agents, including malicious pages that try to give the agent instructions.
Privacy and security
What Perplexity states, as of October 2026:
- Its privacy notice lists improving its services, "including our AI models," among the purposes for using data.
- It says it does not send your queries or conversation content to advertisers, and does not use the content of connected emails to train AI models.
- Incognito mode does not save your search activity across sessions.
- Enterprise plans state that data is never used for training, and add SCIM, audit logs and configurable data retention on Enterprise Max.
- The consumer privacy notice does not apply to Enterprise and API use, which have their own terms.
Platforms
- Web: perplexity.ai
- Desktop: Windows and macOS apps, and the Comet browser
- Mobile: iPhone and Android apps (Comet is on mobile too)
- Developers: the Sonar API
Alternatives
- ChatGPT: also searches with sources, and is a stronger general assistant. See Gemini vs ChatGPT for Google's take.
- Claude: better for long documents and writing, with web search on every plan.
- Microsoft Copilot: free, built into Windows and Edge, with Bing-backed answers.
How to get reliable answers from Perplexity
Perplexity's value is that it shows its work, so the best habit is to use the sources rather than just the summary. A few practices make a big difference:
- Open the key citations. For any number, quote or claim you plan to repeat, click through and check that the page actually says it.
- Check source quality. Prefer official sites, primary documents and established publications over content farms and forums.
- Narrow the sources. Use the academic, social or finance source filters when your question fits one.
- Ask follow-ups. If an answer seems thin, ask for more sources or for the evidence behind a specific sentence.
- Use Research for big questions. It reads more widely, but its reports are long, so skim the source list first.
Users frequently report that Perplexity is excellent at getting them to the right pages quickly, and less reliable when its summary goes beyond what those pages say. Treat it as a fast research assistant, not a final authority.
Who should use Perplexity
Perplexity suits students, researchers, journalists, analysts and anyone who would otherwise open ten tabs to answer one question. The free plan is enough to see whether it fits how you search. Pro is worth it if you run research reports regularly or want access to several top models in one place.
If you want one assistant for everything, or mostly need writing and coding help, a general assistant will serve you better, and you can still use Perplexity's free plan for searching.