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Perplexity AI has nearly stopped my Google use [1]

['Mark Frauenfelder']

Date: 2024-07-01  

For the last several months, I've been using Perplexity, a search engine that returns search results in the form of short articles with citations to the websites it draws on as sources. Since I've been using Perplexity, my use of Google has dropped by at least 75%. Google has become less useful over time because the quality of the results it returns is not nearly as good as it used to be. Perplexity does a great job of finding the best sources and presenting them in a clean format.

An article in Fast Company takes a look at the rise of Perplexity AI and how it is potentially going to disrupt Google's dominance over the search engine market. Perplexity has raised about $163 million, which may sound like a lot, but it is actually equal to just half a day's revenue of Google. Google is worth over a trillion dollars.

So far, Perplexity's free version has been adequate for me. I don't need to pay $20 a month for access to additional large language model AIs and the other premiums it offers. However, eventually, they will have to start selling ads or finding out some other way to generate revenue from people who don't pay because right now they're not making any money off of me other than using the questions I ask and how I interact with it in their data analyses.

I imagine that Perplexity will eventually be acquired by Google or Microsoft and rolled into their search products, which will probably make Perplexity a lot less useful. But for now, it is my primary way of interacting with the web.

Previously:

• How one power-hungry leader destroyed Google search

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/01/perplexity-ai-has-nearly-stopped-my-google-use.html

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