What Perplexity does
Perplexity is an AI-native “answer engine” that combines conversational search with source grounding (inline citations and links). Users ask questions and receive synthesized answers that are backed by verifiable references, aiming to reduce the work of clicking through multiple pages to confirm facts.
Product-wise, Perplexity presents itself as more than a single chatbot: it offers (1) an Answer Engine experience for consumers and teams, (2) workflow-oriented agentic tooling under “Computer” and related products for research, analysis, and task execution, and (3) an API/agent platform so developers can embed grounded AI search and research into their own products.
For enterprise customers, Perplexity positions “Perplexity Enterprise” as an internal-knowledge + external-research system, with integrations to surface answers from enterprise files and applications, while also supporting web research with citations. The enterprise page also emphasizes security controls (for example, SOC 2 Type II certification) and claims about not training on customer enterprise data.
Perplexity’s strategic position is that it is scaling from consumer search/answers into agentic “work completion” and developer/enterprise distribution—expanding where its AI can be embedded (for example, bringing “Computer” into Microsoft 365/Teams via Personal Computer for Windows).