AI-powered search engine Perplexity has launched an “agent,” of sorts, called Perplexity Assistant, which Perplexity says uses reasoning, search, and apps to help with daily tasks.
Perplexity Assistant, which is available for Android devices as of Thursday in the Perplexity app, can take “multi-app actions,” the company says, like hailing a ride or searching for a song.
Because Perplexity’s search engine powers it, Perplexity Assistant has access to the web. That allows the assistant to do things like remind you of an event by finding the right date and time and creating a calendar entry, Perplexity says.
Perplexity Assistant is multimodal in the sense that it can use your phone’s camera to answer questions about what’s around you or on your screen. The assistant also maintains context from one action to another, letting you, for example, have Perplexity Assistant research restaurants in your area and reserve a table automatically, Perplexity says.
We are excited to launch the Perplexity Assistant to all Android users. This marks the transition for Perplexity from an answer engine to a natively integrated assistant that can call other apps and perform basic tasks for you. Update or install Perplexity app on Play Store. pic.twitter.com/FSRDLtVWzB
— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) January 23, 2025
Perplexity Assistant will initially be free for Perplexity users in 15 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Hindi.
While this product sounds great in theory, Perplexity launched half-baked products in the past. For instance, our testing found that Perplexity’s shopping feature, designed to let users place an order without going to a retailer’s website, tended to be slow and error-prone.
Here are a few more examples of what Perplexity Assistant can do. We can’t wait to see how you use it.
Get it here: https://t.co/H4J9cr68So pic.twitter.com/F7ibSFfrgq
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
Srinivas noted in a post on X that some Perplexity Assistant actions “[might] not always work,” but that Perplexity plans to “address [these issues] over the next few months.”
The launch of Perplexity Assistant comes just days after Perplexity rolled out Sonar, an API service that lets enterprises and developers build the company’s generative AI search tools into their own applications and acquired a social media platform for professionals called Read.cv.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity has reportedly raised over $500 million in capital from VCs and is said to be valued at $9 billion.
Perplexity is growing rapidly. The AI-powered search engine is performing over 100 million queries each week as it expands monetization efforts like its advertising program.
A thorn in Perplexity’s side, however, is its legal tussles with publishers. News Corp’s Dow Jones and the NY Post have sued Perplexity over what they describe as a “content kleptocracy.” Many other news sites have expressed concerns that Perplexity closely replicates their content — just in October, The New York Times sent the startup a cease and desist.
Perplexity, which offers a revenue-sharing program for outlets, has said that it respects publisher content.
