Perplexity AI
An AI-powered search engine that retrieves current web content and synthesizes it into a cited answer — rather than just returning a list of links. Useful when you need up-to-date information that a language model's training data might not include. Demonstrates RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) at consumer scale: it's fetching real sources and using them to ground the AI's response, which is why it gives citations and is more reliable for current events than a standalone AI assistant.
In practice
A colleague wants to do research but prefers a tool that cites its sources for every claim rather than a conversational AI. Perplexity AI is a search-focused AI tool that emphasizes citations and live web results. It's not the same use case as Claude — it's optimized for research and fact-finding, where Claude is more general-purpose.
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