When I first heard about Perplexity AI, it was pitched as “Google meets ChatGPT.” That’s a bold claim, so I decided to test it side-by-side with Google Search and ChatGPT over the course of three very different research tasks.
Test 1 – Quick Fact Check
The query: “What’s the latest iOS version as of today?”
Google gave me a list of articles and Apple’s official page, which I had to click through to confirm. ChatGPT (without browsing enabled) guessed based on its training data, which was outdated. Perplexity instantly replied: “iOS 18.3, released July 29, 2025,” with a source link to Apple’s changelog. No extra clicks, no guessing.
Test 2 – In-Depth Market Research
The query: “Current EV adoption rate in Canada and projections for 2030.”
Google produced scattered results—government pages, industry blogs, news articles—but I had to sift through them manually. ChatGPT gave a clean summary but no way to verify its claims without external checking. Perplexity delivered a structured, citation-backed summary: current adoption at 14.2%, projected to hit 45–50% by 2030, pulling data from Statistics Canada and BloombergNEF. I clicked the inline links to verify the stats in seconds.
Test 3 – Practical How-To Guide
The query: “Step-by-step instructions for setting up a self-hosted Ghost blog.”
Google had plenty of tutorials, but each varied in accuracy and format. ChatGPT provided a solid outline but mixed in outdated commands. Perplexity returned a step-by-step guide with commands for the latest Ghost version, plus three linked tutorials for deeper reading. It blended AI summarization with up-to-date source material better than either of the others.
Where Perplexity Stands Out
The main difference is that Perplexity never just “guesses” an answer—it always cites sources right next to the text. This makes it perfect for business research, academic work, or any task where fact-checking matters. The conversational follow-up feature also works much faster than re-typing new search terms in Google.
Where It Still Falls Short
The AI summaries are concise, but not always as creatively phrased as ChatGPT’s. If you need storytelling or nuanced writing, ChatGPT still feels more polished. And for ultra-specific queries that require niche forums or PDFs, you’ll sometimes need to dig past the first AI summary.
In my testing, Perplexity consistently cut my research time by half compared to Google, while keeping the trust factor high thanks to live sources. It’s not here to replace Google or ChatGPT completely—but as a research accelerator, it’s one of the most useful tools I’ve added to my workflow in 2025.
