Perplexity is an AI assistant from Perplexity AI, Inc. (United States) that combines language models with real-time web search. Instead of answering only from the model’s knowledge, it looks up current pages and responds with cited sources, which makes it useful for anyone who needs up-to-date, verifiable information. Perplexity is a private company founded in 2022, headquartered in San Francisco.
What it does
- Research with synthesized answers and links to the sources used
- Questions about news and recent topics, with current information
- Study and work support: summaries, comparisons and explanations with references
- Deeper research tasks with multi-step planning (Deep Research)
- Creation of documents and apps (available on paid plans)
- Image and video generation (paid plan features)
- API access for products that need search with citations
How it works
- You ask a question in natural language
- The system searches current web information and combines it with language models
- The answer is presented with cited sources and links for verification
- On paid plans, you can send images, videos and files as input, choose models and use agent tools
Models
Perplexity does not have its own general-purpose model as its main product: the assistant combines models from different providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, among others) with its own search and synthesis layer. The API includes the Sonar family (search with citations) and, more recently, a router and an agent API that provides access to third-party models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, GLM, etc.) with no markup over provider prices.
Public pricing
- Free tier with limited usage and basic models
- Perplexity Pro: paid subscription (US$ 20/month or US$ 200/year) with higher limits, more advanced models, Deep Research, document/app creation and image generation
- Max plan (US$ 200/month or US$ 2,000/year) for heavier use
- Separate API, pay-as-you-go: Search API (US$ 5 per 1,000 requests), Sonar models per token, and agent API at provider rates plus tools
Strengths
- Answers with cited, verifiable sources
- Good freshness thanks to real-time search
- Clean interface, available on web and apps
- Flexible APIs for search and agents; multimodality on paid plans
Points of attention
- Not a proprietary model: answer quality depends on the model providers
- The free plan has usage and model access limits
- Features and prices change often; confirm values on the official page