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🔍 Perplexity AI – The AI-Powered Search Engine for Researchers

📚 Best For:

  • Quick, accurate research

  • Verifiable answers with citations

  • Summarising articles or comparing viewpoints

  • Academic-style writing or fact-based queries

  • Finding reliable sources for essays, posts, or projects

🧠 Why It’s Special:

Perplexity AI is a blended search engine + chatbot hybrid that combines:

  • Live web results

  • Natural language answers

  • Citations you can click

It’s like using Google and ChatGPT at the same time, but with clean sources and concise summaries.

You ask it a question — it instantly scans the web, compiles the findings, and answers in an easy-to-read format with clickable footnotes.

🔍 Core Strengths

FeatureWhat It Means🔗

Cited sources

Every answer includes direct links to its sources — ideal for trust & accuracy

📰 Real-time info

Pulls from the latest articles and pages on the web

🧠 Smart synthesis

Summarizes complex topics into clear, readable responses

📄 Article summarisation

Copy in a URL or long text and get quick highlights

🎓 Academic-friendlyGreat for reference checking, paper writing, and exploring both sides of a topic

✅ Try Perplexity For:

  • “Compare the economic policies of Biden vs Trump.”

  • “Summarize this [research article] in under 5 bullet points.”

  • “What are the pros and cons of AI in education? Cite your sources.”

  • “Find recent news about lithium mining in Australia.”

  • “What is the current state of the housing market in Melbourne?”

✨ Example Prompts:

Summarize this URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06034-8

What are 3 scientific arguments for and against GMOs? Include sources.

Compare OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s approach to AI safety. Provide citations.

Who won the latest AFL match and what were the key plays?

⚠️ Limitations

WeaknessNotes

🔒 Not fully open-ended

Less creative than GPT-4 or Claude for fiction, storytelling, or free writing

🗣️ Conversational memory

Doesn’t maintain long chat memory like ChatGPT or Claude

📊 Not ideal for deep logicNot the best at multi-step reasoning or math-heavy tasks

🎯 Best Use Case:

Use Perplexity when you need fast, factual, and source-backed answers — especially for:

  • Research papers

  • Reports or blogs needing citations

  • Checking credibility

  • Getting both sides of an argument

  • Exploring niche topics with multiple viewpoints

🔥 Pro Tip:

Pair Perplexity with Claude or GPT-4:

  • Perplexity → for sourcing and fact-finding

  • Claude/GPT-4 → for rewriting, expanding, and formatting your findings