Perplexity AI Upgrades Pro Search, Aims to Beat ChatGPT as Research Assistant

Perplexity AI’s upgraded Pro Search tool aims to revolutionize research and beat ChatGPT by offering more thorough, contextual answers and even conducting its own follow-up searches.

Key upgrades for more advanced problem-solving: Perplexity has enhanced its Pro Search tool with several significant improvements to provide users with a more powerful research assistant:

• The AI now has advanced multi-step reasoning capabilities, allowing it to understand when a question requires a multifaceted approach and work through goals step-by-step, conducting its own follow-up searches as needed to ensure comprehensive and accurate results.
• Integrating the Wolfram|Alpha engine enables the chatbot to quickly and accurately solve complex mathematical questions and perform data analysis across various fields like engineering, banking, and customer service.
• Pro Search’s ability to handle programming queries has also been upgraded, with Perplexity pitching it as a tool developers can use to debug code.

Broad applications across professions: Perplexity suggests the upgraded Pro Search can benefit users in many different professions by enabling them to make more informed decisions:

• Attorneys can use the tool to pinpoint relevant case laws more efficiently.
• Marketers can leverage it to quickly summarize trend analyses.
• The company says that “whatever your profession, Pro Search empowers you to make more informed decisions.”

Balancing accessibility and monetization: While all users can access Pro Search, there are some limitations in place, highlighting Perplexity’s approach to making the tool available while encouraging subscriptions:

• All users get five free uses of Pro Search every four hours.
• For expanded access, users can sign up for a Perplexity Pro subscription.

Aiming to stand out in a competitive AI chatbot market: As Perplexity continues developing its AI tools, it’s clear the company hopes to differentiate itself from rivals like ChatGPT by focusing on specific use cases like in-depth research.

• Perplexity offers two main search modes: Quick Search for fast, accurate results and Pro Search for thorough, “expert research assistant” explorations of topics.
• The chatbot’s ability to not just return search results but analyze them and conduct its own follow-up searches to provide the most comprehensive answers could give it an edge over competitors for certain applications.

Looking ahead: As generative AI and chatbot technologies continue to rapidly evolve, it will be interesting to see how Perplexity’s focus on research-oriented features helps position it in the market and if the company can carve out a dedicated user base among professionals and academics.

While the upgraded Pro Search certainly sounds promising for those who conduct a lot of research, it remains to be seen whether Perplexity can truly “beat ChatGPT at its own game” in the long run, especially as rivals continue to enhance their own offerings. Nonetheless, competition in the AI chatbot space is undoubtedly heating up, which will likely drive further innovation and expanded capabilities across the board.