
AI barely made ripples outside its own realm. But things changed.
Since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, the tech world began to realize the immense possibilities of Large Language Models. And as demands increased, they began an arms race towards supremacy. As more and more joined, the market is quiet saturated.
The only way to stand out, is to create something new, or at least improvise and make things better.
Perplexity is one of the many providers of AI-powered chatbots and this time, it's introducing 'Perplexity Assistant,' a new AI-powered assistant within the Perplexity AI Android app.
It aims to go beyond simply answering questions by helping users perform tasks across multiple apps.
Introducing Perplexity Assistant.
Assistant uses reasoning, search, and apps to help with daily tasks ranging from simple questions to multi-app actions. You can book dinner, find a forgotten song, call a ride, draft emails, set reminders, and more.
Available on Play Store. pic.twitter.com/UHdUIiDOzD— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
Key features include:
- Task completion: Perplexity Assistant can help with tasks like booking dinner reservations, finding songs, calling rides, drafting emails, setting reminders, and more.
- Multi-app actions: It can interact with other apps on your Android device to complete tasks, streamlining processes that would normally require switching between apps.
- Contextual awareness: The assistant maintains context within conversations, allowing users to seamlessly transition from asking a question to performing a related action. For example, you could ask about upcoming basketball games and then have the assistant set a reminder for a specific game.
- Voice and gesture control: Users can interact with the assistant using voice commands or gestures.
- Integration with search and reasoning: Perplexity Assistant uses reasoning and search capabilities to understand user requests and find the necessary information to complete tasks.
- Camera and on-screen recognition: It can identify objects and information through your device's camera or on-screen content.
In essence, Perplexity Assistant is designed to be a more proactive and helpful AI assistant.
Perplexity Assistant browses the web to complete tasks for you. For example, if you want to be reminded of a public event, it will find the correct time and date and set an intelligent reminder. pic.twitter.com/ylhFiIoLjM
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
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Its idea is to create a digital assistant with the ability to understand users' needs and intentions, find relevant information, and take actions across multiple apps.
Here, Perplexity Assistant's method revolves around interacting with other apps on users' Android device, eliminating the need for constant switching between applications and simplifying complex processes.
A key aspect of Perplexity Assistant is its contextual awareness.
It maintains context throughout conversations, allowing for seamless transitions between asking questions and performing related actions.
For instance, a user could inquire about upcoming basketball games and then directly instruct the assistant to set a reminder for a specific game, all within the same interaction. This contextual understanding, combined with voice and gesture control, provides a more intuitive and natural user experience.
Furthermore, Perplexity Assistant leverages Perplexity AI's existing search and reasoning capabilities to accurately interpret user requests and gather the necessary information to complete tasks.
This integration ensures that the assistant not only understands what the user wants but also has the means to find the relevant data and execute the required actions. The inclusion of camera and on-screen recognition further enhances its functionality, enabling it to identify objects and information through the device's camera or displayed content.
It also maintains context from one action to another — if you’re researching restaurants in your area and want to reserve a table, choose an option and Assistant will help book it. pic.twitter.com/8rjEJkhMOf
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
While Perplexity Assistant shows how LLM-powered chatbots can be much more than just the traditional digital assistant, Perplexity Assistant, at least initially, canot work across every app and with every feature.
It’s not able to access Slack or Reddit, for example, and I also couldn’t use it to leave a comment on a YouTube video.
At the moment of its introduction, Perplexity Assistant supports Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, along with email, messaging, and clock apps, according to Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platick.
"We’re continuing to add support for more apps and more functionality though, so this is just the starting point," Platnick adds.
Android users can enable Perplexity Assistant through the Perplexity app, which prompts users to replace their device's default assistant with Perplexity. From there, they can swipe up on the left corner of the screen or hold down your home button to access the assistant.
Initially, Perplexity Assistant is not available on the iPhone, however.
"If Apple gives us the right permissions, we’ll make it happen," Platnick said.
Assistant is multimodal, so you can tell it to turn on the camera and ask about what you see in front of you, or on your screen. pic.twitter.com/Jxg6m6WUV3
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 23, 2025
In summary, Perplexity Assistant strives to be a proactive and helpful AI companion capable of understanding user needs, finding relevant information, and taking actions across multiple apps to fulfill those needs, marking a significant evolution for Perplexity AI from a primarily answer-focused engine to a more comprehensive and integrated assistant.
This marks a shift for Perplexity AI from being primarily an answer engine to a more comprehensive and integrated assistant that can help users with a wider range of daily tasks.
Again, it's worth noting that Perplexity isn't the only fish in the sea.
Alongside Samsung’s announcement of the Gemini-equipped Galaxy S25, Google revealed that its AI assistant can now complete tasks across multiple apps, as well as complete multimodal requests.
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