Worth It? Wednesday: Perplexity Pro Edition

The AI Search Engine That SHOULD Replace Google Search

I've spent $60 over 3 months and used Perplexity.ai Pro daily so you don't have to.

What is Perplexity? It's an AI-powered search engine with a chat & voice interface. You can use via webpage, mobile app, or Mac app currently. Think of it as a search focused LLM, rather than just a text based tool.

Key Feature:

Real-time internet search + source first interface. Most generative AI tools still don't have access to the internet (looking at you Claude), and are hit or miss when it comes to linking sources (looking at you ChatGPT). I highly suggest you switch your default search engine to Perplexity in order to create organic opportunities to use the tool without having to keep the tab open or launch the app. I have had Perplexity as my default search engine in Arc (my favorite browser by far) and even Google Chrome which of course defaults to Google Search.

Main Competitor:

ChatGPT Plus, Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude AI. While all of these have their unique uses and advantages, none of them do what Perplexity is designed to do: research. SearchGPT is available for paid users only & not yet up to par with Perplexity's search capabilities. Google Gemini has internet search built in, but doesn't allow for different language models and it's image generation has had major issues. Claude has a great default tone, but it doesn't have internet access & can't do image generation.

Base Price:

$20/month. Here is a link if you want $10 off your first month sign up 🔗

But is it worth paying for when the free version exists?

Free vs Paid Version Features

The free version is still powerful and allows for 5 pro searches every 4 hours. If you are using it primarily for search and not the text, just use the free version. Free users can still make spaces & pages, but cannot generate images or change language models. Free users can still use Perplexity as their browser's default search engine (highly recommend this!) and even a Chrome extension.

What does Perplexity do best?

• Real time information is accessible on the web (think sports scores, election results, news)
• Language models can be switched (I mostly use Claude 3.5 Sonnet)

• Image generation tools are available within Perplexity Pro. There are three to pick from I like Flux.1 best for most uses. Creating one image at a time & having it on the sidebar makes the image creation feature seem like an add on rather than a core feature.

• Focused searches such as academic (think journals), math, writing (no web), writing (no internet), videos, social (think Reddit forums) can be used. I mostly use the web and academic searches, but the video search works better than native YouTube if you are looking for a specific type of video.

• Spaces are similar to Custom GPTs in that they allow documents to be uploaded into the knowledge base, persistent instructions (so you don't have to prompt it with general context at the start of each conversation), and can be shared with up to 5 editors.

• Pages are a way to turn your searches or conversations into a webpage that others can access & interact with. I've not found a ton of practical uses for this feature. It's basically a fancy way to share a chat log.

The Verdict ⚖️

Perplexity Pro is Worth It For:

• People who want internet access baked into their LLM. As a history teacher & researcher by trade, I can't over-emphasize how much I appreciate the source-first interface of Perplexity's results.
• At least until ChatGPT's late November of 2024 update, most people have preferred Claude 3.5 Sonnet for "natural" and "human" sounding language. One of the biggest issues with Claude is its lack of internet access. What does that have to do with Perplexity? It means you can combine one of the best language models with the best search tool if you have Perplexity Pro.

Not Worth It For:

• People who want unique interfaces like ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode or Claude's Artifacts. People who don't need to regularly use internet access with their LLM
• People who do a lot of coding aren't going to get much utility out of Perplexity Pro. This is not my area of expertise, but many coders are loyal to Claude in part due to it's artifacts interface. Perplexity does not have a feature like this for code.
• People who want to be able to share their Spaces with groups of 5+ collaborators (CustomGPTs are still king for this purpose) will also be left frustrated that their customized tools can only be edited and used by five people. Spaces are great, but not for sharing with others!

Have you used Perplexity Pro? Do you find it worth it? Do you have an AI enthusiast in your network that needs to read this Worth It Wednesday on Perplexity Pro? Tag them in a comment below or share this article so they can leave their thoughts.

Next Worth It? Wednesday we will be reviewing ChatGPT Plus which is the closest competitor to Perplexity Pro and costs the same $20 per month.

Here is a link if you want $10 off your first month sign up 🔗 of Perplexity