The AI search company Perplexity told the Financial Times it saw 250 million queries in the last month compared to 500 million for the whole of last year.
Perplexity uses a large language model, like ChatGPT. It also relies on the latest data from the web to answer queries, not just its training data. While it’s true that ChatGPT can now search the web, this wasn’t the case when Perplexity launched, making it especially useful.
OpenAI has announced a direct competitor to Perplexity called SearchGPT. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
Perplexity's Dmitry Shevelenko, the company's chief business officer, reported the stats to the FT.
Commenting on the company's size, he said it has a few advantages, namely velocity and focus. This is in contrast to Google, which has the world's biggest traditional search engine. Google was initially slow in the AI race and is still figuring things out.
OpenAI is doing many different things and isn't as focused on search as Perplexity is, Shevelenko said. He believes Perplexity's sole focus on search will allow it to stay ahead of OpenAI.
Not too long ago, several publications accused Perplexity of plagiarism. The publications said it had been trained on their content without permission. Shevelenko, speaking to the FT, said that the company took the criticisms on board. Perplexity now displays citations more prominently. It also doesn't summarize any content from websites.
Finally, Shevelenko mentioned Perplexity's new revenue-sharing program. He said that 50 publishers have already asked to join it. It could placate publications as they'll get paid for their cited content.
Despite its rising popularity, Perplexity is still prone to errors. For this reason, it is good to go to the sources and check what they say.
Have you ever used Perplexity? Let us know in the comments about your experience with it and whether you've had many incorrect responses.
Source: Financial Times
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