Tech & AI, Explained

perplexity

9 min read

🇺🇸 USA · Perplexity AI

Status: 🟩 COMPLETE 🟦 LIVING Last updated: 2026-06-25 Plain-English tagline: An AI-powered search engine — ask a question in plain English, get a conversational answer with the web sources cited. The encyclopedia’s top pick for “find me an answer with citations.”

Front-matter facts

FieldValue
VendorPerplexity AI Inc (San Francisco, USA)
Country / origin🇺🇸 USA
Recommended for Australian users?✅ Yes — fully accessible from AUS, AUD billing supported. Telstra customers often get 12 months Pro free as a phone-plan bundle (check telstra.com.au before paying).
Privacy summaryFree/Pro: AI Data Retention is ON by default — opt out in Settings → Account → Data Controls. Enterprise: never trains. API: never trains.
Free tierYes — generous; web answers with citations, basic file uploads, image generation, voice (mobile), Spaces, basic Discover feed
Paid tiersPro US200/year (US40/seat/mo (5-250 seats) · Enterprise quoted (250+)
First releasedDecember 2022
Last reviewed2026-06-25
Official sitehttps://perplexity.ai

What it is

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine. You type a question — “What’s the best electric SUV for $50,000 in Australia?” — and instead of a list of blue links like Google, you get a paragraph-length conversational answer with numbered citations to the web pages it used. Click a citation, you go to the source.

Under the hood, Perplexity uses a mix of frontier models (Claude, GPT, Grok, and their own “Sonar” model fine-tuned for search) to read web pages in real time and synthesise answers.

It’s a separate product from Google or ChatGPT — it sits in a niche where neither is naturally strongest:

  • Google gives you blue links + AI Overviews (improving fast but historically less conversational than Perplexity)
  • ChatGPT gives you conversational answers with Search enabled but citations vary in quality and traceability
  • Perplexity makes “answer with traceable citations” the default mode of operation

Analogy: if Google is a librarian who hands you a stack of relevant books, and ChatGPT is a friend who’s read everything and tells you the answer, Perplexity is a librarian-friend hybrid who tells you the answer AND hands you the exact pages the answer came from. Best for fact-finding where you want to verify.

What you’d use it for

  • Quick factual questions where citations matter — “When was the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened?” → answer + Wikipedia + Sydney Living Museums link
  • Comparison shopping — “Best AUS health insurance for a family of 4 in 2026” → table of options + links to comparison sites
  • News and current events — “What’s happening in the AUS federal election” → today’s coverage with source links
  • Research starters — “Explain the basics of carbon credit markets in Australia” → primer + links to RBA, Clean Energy Regulator, academic papers
  • Travel research — “5-day itinerary for Tasmania in autumn” → planned itinerary + restaurant + lodging citations
  • Discover feed — Perplexity’s curated “what’s interesting today” feed (homepage)
  • Spaces — long-lived workspaces for ongoing research topics with persistent files and history
  • Pages — turn a Perplexity research thread into a shareable web page (good for capturing research for others)
  • Deep Research — multi-step research that runs for 10-30 minutes and produces a structured report (Pro)
  • Comet browser — Perplexity’s AI-first browser with agent capabilities (recently launched; separate entry)

How to sign up + first 5 minutes from Australia

  1. Go to perplexity.ai in any browser.
  2. Click Sign up. Use email or Continue with Google / Apple.
  3. Verify email if needed.
  4. You’re on the free tier immediately.
  5. Before paying — check if you get it free:
    • Telstra customers: log in to telstra.com.au or the My Telstra app; many post-paid plans include 12 months of Perplexity Pro free
    • Verify there isn’t a current student / startup / professional-discount promo at perplexity.ai before subscribing
  6. Try one of these:
    • “What’s the best free AI image generator that doesn’t require sign-up?” (typical comparison question)
    • “Summarise the recent AUS budget changes affecting small businesses”
    • “Latest reviews of the iPhone 17 — what are the consensus pros and cons?”
    • Click the microphone in the mobile app for voice mode
  7. Optional — upgrade to Pro. Settings → Subscription → Upgrade. US200/year. AUS cards accepted.

What it costs — what you actually get

Free tier

  • Unlimited Quick Searches (the standard answer-with-citations mode)
  • 3 Pro Searches per day (deeper search using more models; bigger context)
  • Basic Sonar model
  • File uploads (small, limited daily)
  • Image generation (limited)
  • Spaces (limited)
  • Discover feed
  • Mobile, web, desktop apps

Pro — US36 incl GST) or US$200/year

  • 300+ Pro Searches per day (the heavy-duty deep-context mode)
  • Pick your model: Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.8, GPT-5, Grok, plus Perplexity’s own Sonar Pro
  • Deep Research — much higher quota
  • File uploads — much larger and more frequent
  • Image generation — higher quota
  • Larger Spaces (more files, longer history)
  • Comet browser access
  • Priority during peak hours
  • US$10/month credit for the Perplexity API (use Perplexity’s search-grounded API in your own apps)

Enterprise Pro — US$40/seat/month (5-250 seats)

  • Everything in Pro
  • No training on your data — contractually committed
  • SAML SSO
  • Admin console
  • Higher rate limits
  • Multi-source enterprise data connectors

Enterprise — quoted (250+ seats)

  • Everything in Enterprise Pro
  • SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR-aligned data handling
  • Custom data residency
  • Customer-managed encryption keys
  • Priority support
  • Custom internal data sources

Telstra free Pro

  • Many Telstra post-paid mobile plans bundle 12 months of Perplexity Pro at no extra cost — check telstra.com.au or My Telstra
  • Optus and Vodafone have at various times offered similar bundles; check current promos

API (separate product at sonar.perplexity.ai)

  • Pay-per-million-tokens, plus per-search cost
  • Sonar (default), Sonar Pro (deeper), Sonar Reasoning (chain-of-thought)
  • Useful for building apps that need real-time web search grounding

Hidden costs to know about

  • App Store subscriptions can be slightly different in price — check web price first
  • The API and the consumer Pro subscription are billed separately; Pro gives a US$10 monthly API credit, then API usage is metered
  • Comet browser is currently free with Pro; standalone pricing may change

How it compares to alternatives

CapabilityPerplexity ProChatGPT Plus + SearchGemini AI Pro
Search-with-citations focusBest — citations are the productGood, citations vary in qualityGood (AI Mode in google.com is its own thing)
Pick which underlying modelYes — Claude/GPT/Grok/SonarLimited (GPT family only)Limited (Gemini family only)
Deep ResearchExcellentExcellentExcellent (generous free)
Spaces / ProjectsSpaces (good)ProjectsProjects + NotebookLM (sister)
Pages (shareable research)Yes (unique)Canvas (different concept)Limited
Browser agentComet browserOperator / AgentProject Mariner (preview)
General chat (not search)Adequate but search-shapedBest general chatBest general chat
Image generationAdequate (uses other vendors’ models)Built-in (gpt-image-1)Built-in (Imagen)
Video generationLimitedSoraVeo 3
Voice modeMobile-only voiceBest (Advanced Voice)Good (Gemini Live)
Real-time webBest designed for itYesYes
Price (consumer top)US$20 (often free via Telstra)US$20US$19.99

If you mainly want search-and-research-with-citations, Perplexity wins. If you want general chat that also can search, ChatGPT Plus or Gemini AI Pro are equivalent or better for the chat side. Many people use both — Perplexity for fact-finding research, Claude or ChatGPT for writing / coding / deeper conversation.

Privacy / data handling deep dive

Free + Pro: AI Data Retention is ON by default, meaning your search queries and conversations are saved and may be used to improve Perplexity’s models.

To opt out:

  1. Settings (top-right) → Account
  2. Data Controls → AI Data Retention → toggle OFF

When AI Data Retention is OFF:

  • Future queries are not used for training
  • You can still see chat history (retention for your own use is separate)
  • For complete history-off, also turn off Save Search History below

Enterprise Pro and Enterprise: Perplexity does NOT train on your data. Contractually committed. Tenant-isolated.

Perplexity API: does NOT train on your inputs by default. Inputs retained briefly for abuse-monitoring then deleted.

Search query routing: when Perplexity answers a question, your query is sent to (a) the underlying search providers (Bing, Brave, Google, etc.) and (b) the underlying model providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.) you’ve selected. Each of those vendors has its own privacy policy for what they do with the query.

For the most sensitive queries: opt out of training in Perplexity AND consider that the query still flows to search backends. For truly confidential research, use a tool with stronger data-isolation (M365 Copilot, Vertex AI with private connectors, Anthropic Claude Enterprise with custom data).

Where data lives: US data centres by default. Enterprise has custom data-residency options.

Australian Privacy Act: Perplexity is subject to it when handling Australian personal information. Privacy Policy meets Australian Privacy Principles.

See privacy-and-data-training.md 🟩 🟦 for the comparative deep dive.

Recent changes (since the last review)

  • 2026: Comet browser launched — Perplexity’s agentic AI browser
  • 2026: Pages feature expanded — turn any research thread into a publishable page
  • Late 2025: Telstra and several other AUS / NZ / US / European carriers started bundling 12 months Pro into plans
  • Late 2025: Spaces expanded with file persistence and team-collaboration features
  • 2025: Deep Research mode launched
  • 2025: Native Sonar Pro and Sonar Reasoning models released
  • 2025: Acquired several smaller startups; expanded into mobile-first experience

(Check perplexity.ai/changelog for the latest.)

Gotchas

  • Free tier Pro Search limit is 3/day — easy to hit. Pro removes the constraint.
  • Citation quality varies by source. Perplexity can cite low-quality sites or AI-generated content. Always check the citation, especially for medical/legal/financial answers.
  • Sometimes the cited source doesn’t actually support the claim. Click and verify on high-stakes questions — the model may have synthesised a claim that’s adjacent to but not directly from the source.
  • The model selector requires you to pick proactively — by default, Pro uses Sonar Pro, which is fine, but for the strongest answers pick Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-5 Pro explicitly.
  • Spaces have a context limit — don’t dump 1000 PDFs in and expect coherent answers. Use Spaces for focused topics with curated source sets.
  • Comet browser is its own thing — installing it doesn’t replace Chrome or Edge automatically; it’s an additional browser.
  • Telstra Pro bundles auto-activate but auto-cancel at month 12 if you don’t keep the eligible plan — set a reminder.
  • App Store subscriptions are managed in App Store / Play Store, not in the Perplexity app.
  • The Perplexity API and the consumer Pro subscription are billed separately. Pro includes US$10/month credit for the API; usage beyond is metered.
  • Voice mode is mobile-only at time of writing.
  • Perplexity’s Discover feed has algorithmic filtering — useful but biased toward what gets engagement. Don’t treat it as a neutral news feed.

See also

Sources

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