A lot of AI chatbots all feel the same. Sure, they use diff…

A lot of AI chatbots all feel the same. Sure, they use different models under the hood, but whether you're using ChatGPT, Meta AI, or Google Gemini, the experience is pretty similar. Prompt goes in, generated AI response comes out—which is why Perplexity AI is so interesting.
Instead of just being another chatbot, Perplexity AI is billed as an alternative to traditional search engines. Yes, it works kind of like a typical conversational AI chatbot, but it's designed to be more accurate and up-to-date. So how does this compare to ChatGPT, which has also been held up as a possible replacement for search engines?
Well, I've been using both apps side-by-side for a few months now, so let's look at what sets the two tools apart. And most importantly, whether you should use Perplexity AI or ChatGPT.
Perplexity AI vs. ChatGPT at a glance
Perplexity AI and ChatGPT are both great tools. You'll need to read the full comparison for a proper breakdown of what they both can do, but here's a brief overview.
Perplexity AI
ChatGPT
Power
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Uses latest state-of-the-art AI models
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The best multimodal chatbot around
Flexibility
⭐⭐⭐ Great for search-like queries, but less useful otherwise
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Can do almost any AI language task
Knowledge accuracy and depth
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Can still hallucinate, but large variety of sources makes it less likely
⭐⭐⭐ Can still hallucinate and can be lazy in use of sources
ChatGPT is a general-purpose chatbot
ChatGPT is the leading example of what an AI chatbot can be. Since launching in 2022, it's been pushing the edge of what large language models (LLMs) and large multimodal models (LMMs) are capable of. It's gone from an interesting novelty to a highly capable productivity tool in a very short time.
If you haven't played around with it in a while, here are some of the things ChatGPT can do:
Give answers to factual questions
Solve logic, math, and other kinds of problems
Write, troubleshoot, and help with computer code
Draft emails, social media posts, and any other kind of written communication
Identify objects from photos
Create charts, tables, and other ways to display data
Analyze data from charts and tables
Translate from one language to another
Summarize information from uploaded documents
Converse in a voice chat
In short, ChatGPT is a great general-purpose assistant. While it can do a wide variety of tasks, it doesn't necessarily go as deep into them as dedicated tools. For example, while you can get ChatGPT to generate any kind of text you want, an AI-powered writing tool like Jasper will give you a lot more options and control, and allow you to generate longer documents, emails, and the like. Similarly, you can use ChatGPT to generate images with DALL·E 3, but Midjourney is far more powerful if you're primarily interested in AI image generators.
So if ChatGPT is an incredibly competent jack of all trades, where does Perplexity AI fit in?
Perplexity AI is designed to find information from the web
While Perplexity AI looks and feels a bit like a chatbot, it's far more focused than ChatGPT. It's designed to find and summarize content from the web. Think of it like a supercharged version of Google's AI overviews—except you're in control, and it (probably) won't tell you to put glue on pizza.
The best way to see this is by looking at the same query in both apps. Here's what ChatGPT gives me for "Why did Rishi Sunak call an election in the UK?"
It's searched the web and pulled content from a few sources. Not bad, but hardly a thorough overview.
And here's what Perplexity AI gave me for the same prompt.
It's searched the web as well, but instead of two sources, it's found 20. It's also neatly summarized the information and referenced each individual point.
The situation is similar when I ask the follow-up: "How has Labour responded?"
While both apps answer the question, Perplexity AI's answer seems more factual; I feel ChatGPT's veers a little too close to unsupported speculation.
While this is just one example, the results are the same for other factual or newsworthy prompts. Whatever you ask, Perplexity AI tends to give a more rounded, referenced answer.
This isn't to say that ChatGPT's responses can't be useful. But Perplexity AI does the better job.
Perplexity AI also gives you control over where it looks for its resources. You can direct it to search the whole internet, just academic papers, WolframAlpha, YouTube, or Reddit, depending on where you think the best answer to your question might be.
Though Perplexity AI can do chatbot things if you push it
Large language models are nothing if not flexible, so while Perplexity AI is at its best answering factual questions, you can get it to do all the other chatbot-y things if you want. Either by giving it instructions on how to respond to prompts...
...or by using the dedicated Writing focus, which skips the web search and lets you prompt the AI model directly.
And like ChatGPT, there's a built-in AI image generator.
Still, all of this can fee…