Perplexity

What it is

Perplexity is an answer engine rather than a chatbot. It combines a search index with an LLM and returns short, sourced summaries — every claim carries numbered citations that link to the original pages.

What it is genuinely good at

• Research with receipts. "Best budget EVs 2025, with sources" gets an answer you can actually verify.
• Current events. It searches the live web by default, so no training-cutoff hallucination about last week.
• Comparisons and quick briefs. Its structured summaries of "X vs Y" and topic overviews are excellent first-pass research.
• Deep Research mode. Longer, multi-step reports with full citation lists.

Honest limitations

It summarizes sources, it does not judge them — a weak source in, a confident summary out. Open the citations for anything important. And for creative writing or long-form drafting, a general assistant like ChatGPT is the better tool.