Bottom line: Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the live web and replies with a written answer plus numbered citations to the sources it used, instead of a list of links. It is free to use, with Pro at $20 a month and Max at $200 a month, and it is the strongest mainstream option for research and fact-checking where you need to verify every claim, but a weak one for long-form writing or code.
| What it is | An AI-powered answer engine from Perplexity AI, a privately held US company founded in 2022. It retrieves live web pages and generates a cited answer. It also ships Comet, a Chromium-based AI browser, and the Sonar API for developers. |
| Best for | Research, fact-checking, current-events questions and market or product lookups, where being able to click through to the original source matters more than polish. |
| Weakest at | Long-form and creative writing, and code generation, where general-purpose assistants are clearly better. Its answers are only as good as the pages it retrieves, so thin or SEO-spam sources produce confidently wrong summaries. It is also a defendant in an ongoing US copyright suit brought by Dow Jones and the New York Post. |
| Pricing | Free tier (unlimited standard search, small daily allowance of Pro Search); Pro $20/month; Max $200/month; Comet browser free; Enterprise and Sonar API priced separately. |
| Our take | Use it as your search engine, not your writing assistant. The free tier covers most people; Pro is worth $20 only if you research daily and want to pick the underlying model. |
Independent review. No affiliate links. Last checked 23 August 2026.
Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.
Frequently asked questions
Is Perplexity free?
Yes. Perplexity has a permanently free tier that gives unlimited standard searches with citations, plus a small daily allowance of Pro Search and a limited number of Research runs. Paid tiers are Pro at $20 a month and Max at $200 a month, which add model choice, higher limits, file uploads and image generation. The Comet browser is free.
Who owns Perplexity?
Perplexity AI is a privately held US company founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski. It is not owned by Google, OpenAI or any other AI lab, and it is not publicly traded. Investors include Nvidia, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Accel, IVP, NEA and Bezos Expeditions.
What is Perplexity used for?
It is used as a research and search tool. You ask a question in plain language, Perplexity searches the live web, and it returns a short written answer with numbered footnotes linking to the pages it drew from. Typical uses are fact-checking, current-events questions, product and market research, and summarising documents you upload.
Is Perplexity better than ChatGPT?
They do different jobs. Perplexity is built around web retrieval and citation, so it is generally the better choice for questions that depend on current, verifiable facts. ChatGPT is stronger for long-form writing, brainstorming, coding and multi-step agentic tasks. Many people use both: Perplexity to find and verify, a general assistant to draft.
Does Perplexity use its own AI model?
Partly. Perplexity develops its own Sonar models, which are tuned for fast retrieval-based answering rather than broad general knowledge. It also routes queries to third-party frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, which paying subscribers can select manually. Free users cannot choose which model answers them.
Is Perplexity safe and private to use?
It is a mainstream, legitimate product rather than anything malicious. The genuine consideration is data use: paid tiers let you turn off having your searches used for model improvement, and the Comet browser has drawn criticism for the browsing data it collects. Check the current privacy settings before using it for confidential work.
What is Comet, Perplexity’s browser?
Comet is Perplexity’s Chromium-based web browser, released in 2025 and free on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. It places Perplexity’s assistant alongside your tabs so it can read, summarise and act across the pages you have open. It is a separate product from perplexity.ai, though the two share your account and subscription.