Transcription
Today, I'll show you how to use Perplexity AI and why this sequel to Google search deserves a place in your AI toolkit. By the end of this video, you'll know how to get credible answers fast for the questions that you normally search for, tune your searches to just look at academic papers or even social media, and know when Perplexity is better than chat GPT, and when it's not.
Now, to access Perplexity, click the card at the top or use the link in the description below. Let's dive in.
Here we are on the Perplexity homepage. It's simple and it looks very similar to other AI tools on the web. In the center of the screen is the prompt box. This is where you can ask Perplexity any question you want the answer to. Below the prompt box, Perplexity gives you some ideas of what you can ask it, including more details on recent headlines, sample questions, and price data for stocks and crypto. When I click inside of the prompt box, I see a number of recent headlines I can also ask more about. We're not so interested in these right now.
One of the main reasons that you'd use Perplexity versus other AI tools is when you want extra confidence that it's not just making things up. Let's see that in action. I want to know how a traffic light works. Once you type in your question, press the Enter key or click on the arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the prompt box to submit it. You'll notice the answer comes back pretty fast. So let's walk through it step by step.
Here we see three panels of information. The panel at the bottom left contains the core answer. The panel on the right, on the other hand, has images and videos that you can watch about the topic. And in the top left panel, Perplexity cites its sources. You'll notice that throughout the answer, Perplexity cites its sources too. A citation occurs anywhere you see a small number in a gray rounded rectangle. You can click on any of these citations to go to the original source.
Now, are you a sharp cookie? If so, you might be wondering, why don't we just use Google? In fact, if you ask Google for the same thing, do you know what you get? Well, you get an AI overview at the top of your search results. And look at this, you've got the core answer on the left and a list of sources on the right. And this answer looks very similar to what Perplexity gives. So what's the deal? Why use Perplexity?
One simple answer to that question is that not all search results in Google have an AI overview. For example, if I ask about something relatively recent, like how does AI predict whale movements to reduce ship damage? Google just shows me recent articles on the topic. But if we go back to Perplexity, we can start a new prompt, or what Perplexity calls a thread, by clicking the button in the top left of the screen. We can ask the same question, submit it just like before, and then receive the same style of answer that we've come to expect. Note that this has already summarized the recent article that Google found in its first search result.
Okay, so that's interesting, but maybe not enough for you to make using Perplexity a part of your daily habits. So let me show you a way that you can really use it to its potential. I'm going to start a new thread this time using the Control I shortcut on Windows or Command K on a Mac. This time, I have a more serious question, and I don't want information from just any article that someone posted. I'm looking for information contained within actual research. In my opinion, this is where Perplexity really shines.
To filter your search, click on the web icon in the bottom left of the prompt box. This allows you to toggle three different types of sources for your search. Now, we've already done some web searching, but since we want to look at research only, let's turn on the academic switch, and I'll turn off the web switch. From here, you know the drill. Click on the green arrow to submit your prompt. Just like before, in the bottom left, you have your core answer, and in the top left, you have your list of sources. Your sources this time are all from published scientific papers, and you can see this by clicking on the plus five sources button at the end of this row. Now, here, you can click on any source to browse the original paper, and if you find there's a source that you don't like, then you can remove it and rerun the prompt. To do this, check the box at the top right of any source, then click the remove source button that appears at the bottom of the sources list. This reruns the prompt, and notice this time, we only have four additional sources instead of the original five.
Now, there's one other source that we haven't looked at yet. Let's check that out right now. I'm going to create a new thread. Next, I'll click on the academic icon to expose the other sources for search. Instead of academic this time, let's select social. At the time of filming, social basically means search Reddit. Sometimes we want the wisdom of the crowd, especially in times where we've been unsuccessful on our own. So here's my next question of perplexity: How can I get started making a budget? Everything I've tried so far has failed. Let's see what the wisdom of Reddit has to offer. Once again, you see our answer in the bottom left, and this time, it's taken nine different Reddit threads and condensed them down into a couple of paragraphs, and those paragraphs are a step-by-step guide. I can follow these steps one at a time, and if I get stuck, I can refer to the original thread where it was discussed.
Now that you've gotten some comprehensive answers from perplexity, you might want to share those with a friend. To share the result of any prompt, click the share button at the top right of the screen. This copies a link for you to share. You can also make threads private, but only if you sign up for an account.
Now you may have noticed that every time we created a new thread, the old thread disappeared. In order to make your threads private or even save any of your threads, you must sign up for an account by clicking the sign up button in the bottom left. I'm going to show you how to optimize your experience once you have an account, so go ahead and sign up to continue.
Now that you're signed in, all of your new queries will be saved in the library, but that's not everything you get with an account. Click on the gear icon in the bottom left to access your settings. Here's a couple of things you might be interested in. Use the appearance setting to go to dark mode if you wish, then take a look at that AI data retention setting down below. Uncheck this if you don't want perplexity to train its models with your data. Next, click on the profile tab. On this tab, you can introduce yourself, which really means to provide custom instructions to the AI for every thread that you start. Here, I'm really telling perplexity to get to the point. No long-winded explanations, just simple bullet points. Now, unfortunately, in my testing, it seemed to take several hours before the AI would update based on the instructions you provide here, but let me show you an example of how this works. I'll ask a simple question: why are there seven colors in the rainbow? And then click submit. And now the response still provides some backstory, but it gets to the answer quickly.
Now let's talk about spaces. Spaces are like little rooms in your library where every thread you start is governed by the same custom instructions. This saves you from having to repeat yourself time and time again. Let's create a space together by clicking on the create a space button. We'll call this space business mentor. And I've got some business mentor instructions that I pulled from earlier. The key with me is not to sugarcoat advice. Before we click continue, let's add an emoji. I'm gonna look for the tie. Here we go, this works great. Then we'll click continue. Before we ask our business mentor a question, let me pull your eyes over to the sources tab. You can add files and links to this space to help fuel the answers you get back. Now you can add links on any plan, but if you want to add files, you have to be on the pro plan. And even on that pro plan, there are limits to each of the files. You can only have up to five files and they must be less than 25 megs each.
Now that we've added our files, let's ask our business mentor a question. Here's a question about business strategy: We're struggling to find our niche. How do we get there? Once the answer comes back, you see the sources are a combination of the files that we uploaded as well as information online. And each of those sources is linked independently in this cohesive result. You can see references one and two are to the files.
Now you may have noticed this pro switch. When you turn this on, it gives you access to three times the sources to maximize the precision and relevance of the answer you receive. So let's ask the same question with a pro search this time. And by the way, I'm gonna start a new thread so we start with fresh context. This time, Proplexity used 18 sources and the answer has more citations for each of its points. As a free user, you get three pro searches per day. And as a pro user, you get at least 300.
There's one more component of pro that's kind of interesting. If you go back to the settings page and this time scroll down to the Proplexity Pro section, you can modify the underlying AI model that Proplexity uses. There are several different models to choose from and the best one will depend on your scenario. My advice is if you're not getting satisfactory responses with one model, try another model. But don't make the mistake of thinking that you can just pay for Proplexity Pro and you get access to all these other services for free. That's because on top of all these models, Proplexity is applying its own search-first rigor. Put another way, if you use GPT-40 here, you're still going to get a different response in Proplexity than you would in chat GPT.
And for this last part of the tutorial, we're actually gonna put that to the test. We'll pull up one last query in Proplexity and then put chat GPT side by side. We'll ask both of them about where we can grab dinner in Rome on a Friday night. And for chat GPT, I'm going to specifically turn on the search feature to make sure that it searches the web. Okay, off we go. So you get recommendations on both, but notice that they are slightly different between the two. Now you might prefer the Proplexity experience here, or you might prefer the chat GPT experience here. But one thing's for certain, Proplexity outpaces chat GPT when it comes to citations.
For example, here's a research query, which I've asked both chat GPT and Proplexity. Proplexity just nailed it. It got all the five tests I was looking for, as well as good sources for each of them. Chat GPT, on the other hand, didn't do so well. It only got one of the five tests correct, but look at how confident it is presenting this as the right answer. And when pressed on what its source was, only then did it revise its answer.
Now, if you're astute, you may have noticed that I didn't have chat GPT search on. And if it's on, to be fair to chat GPT, it does get the correct answer. But I made an honest mistake in forgetting to turn it on. Would you risk wasting your time knowing that you could make the same mistake?
Overall, Proplexity for me is about reliability and chat GPT and others are for creativity. So I won't be asking Proplexity to write my emails anytime soon. Finally, a tool that makes you feel smart, not perplexed. I'm David, and I'll see you in the next video.