Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, has launched a type of “agent” called Perplexity Assistant. Perplexity says the assistant uses reasoning, search, and apps to help with daily tasks.
Perplexity Assistant will be available in the Perplexity app on Android devices starting Thursday, and the company says it can perform “multi-app actions” such as hailing a ride or searching for a song.
Perplexity's search engine is functional, allowing Perplexity Assistant to access the web. Perplexity says this allows the assistant to do things like find the right date and time or create a calendar entry to remind you of an event.
Perplexity Assistant is multimodal in the sense that it can use your phone's camera to answer questions about your surroundings and what's on your screen. The assistant also maintains context from one action to another, so you can, for example, have Perplexity Assistant look up restaurants in your area and automatically book a table for you, Perplexity says.
We're excited to offer Perplexity Assistant to all Android users. This marks Perplexity's transition from a response engine to a natively integrated assistant that can call other apps to perform basic tasks. Update or install the Perplexity app on the Play Store. pic.twitter.com/FSRDLtVWzB
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) January 23, 2025
Perplexity Assistant will initially be available for free to Perplexity users in 15 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Hindi.
While this product sounds great in theory, Perplexity has released middling products in the past. For example, our testing found that Perplexity's shopping feature, which is designed to allow users to place orders without visiting a retailer's website, tends to be time-consuming and error-prone. .
Here are some more examples of what you can do with Perplexity Assistant. I'm looking forward to seeing how you use it.
Get it here: https://t.co/H4J9cr68So pic.twitter.com/F7ibSFfrgq
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
In a series of posts about X, Srinivas pointed out some Perplexity Assistant actions.[might] “It doesn't always work,” but Perplexity plans to address this issue in the coming months. For example, Srinivas said that currently, the Assistant can only summarize unread emails and upcoming calendar events if the user has a notification-based workaround enabled.
The launch of Perplexity Assistant comes as Perplexity rolls out an API service called Sonar to enable businesses and developers to incorporate the company's generative AI search tools into their own applications, and a social media platform for professionals called Read.cv. This took place a few days after the acquisition.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity has reportedly raised more than $500 million in VC funding and is valued at $9 billion.
The embarrassment is growing rapidly. AI-powered search engines run more than 100 million queries each week as they expand their monetization efforts, including advertising programs.
But what's troubling Perplexity is its legal battle with its publisher. News Corp's Dow Jones and the NY Post sued Perplexity over what they called “content theft politics.” Many other news sites have expressed concern about Perplexity's close replication of their content, and just in October, the New York Times sent the startup a cease-and-desist order.
Perplexity, which offers a revenue-sharing program for retailers, said it respects publishers' content.