ZD 24.36: Embracing Perplexity
What Perplexity.ai can do for you.
In this issue: New rules of communication, geothermal coming, airtag schematics, prediction markets at google, loving and using Perplexity.ai.
The Distilled Spirit
🤣 The Six New Rules of Communication (
)Ted Gioia explains how the era of the teleprompter is over. Audiences now want trust and authenticity more than authority and it is showing. This applies to more than just politicians. Anyone exercising leadership in a group setting needs to consider how they can deliver messages in a more authentic and less formal way. Seated, two-way, informal, conversational, spontaneous and off-the-cuff are winning the war.
🤘 Geothermal Rocks ()
Abundance needs abundant electricity. Nuclear power has been in the news, but another possible solution to green energy is to leverage the earth’s own heat. Geothermal energy was once far-fetched, but technology invented for fracking oil has expanded the art of the possible. Keep an eye on this space it could be exciting.
💺 How do AirTags Work? ()
ByteByteGo publishes very digestible technology explainers. Arguably the most digestible on the planet. They are a great place to go if you need to understand network protocols or application architecture quickly. This explanation of how AirTags work is a great example of what they do, and a pretty cool window into the magic behind a very useful piece of technology. The bits about deadlocks and search engines are added bonuses.
🎲 The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google (Asterisk Magazine)
Prediction markets are pretty hot right now. Just ask the French Whale. Google was there early as they are wont to do. Explore Google's experiments with prediction markets over two decades. Dan Schwarz narrates the story of Prophit and Gleangen, analyzing their roles in enhancing decision-making and the hurdles they faced within the corporate environment.
Embracing Perplexity
Perplexity.ai is hot $9bn unicorn right now. Here is my brief review of the platform. Read on for a bit of why you would want to use it, a few use cases and tips and some further reading for more.
Features that Set Perplexity Apart
Verifiable AI Research
In case you have not tried it, Perplexity's fundamental value proposition and primary use case is as an AI explanation tool that looks at current headlines to give you up-to-date information on virtually any topic. Up to date information connected to sources for easy verification or further explanation. If you want AI to explain current news or need to get the most up-to-date insights on a subject, Perplexity is the tool for you. It can largely slot in as a Google replacement for many of your web searches today.
Faceted and Focused Search
Beyond the Perplexity's faceted search capabilities make it easy to refine your searches to specific formats, such as videos, social media posts, or academic journals. This focused approach allows you to quickly zero in on the type of content you need without having to sift through irrelevant information and also limit outputs to what you are really looking for. This is a really nice add for when you want to try and look at things from specific angles or without external inputs.
Pages and Spaces
Two of the most impressive tools in Perplexity are Pages and Spaces. Pages are a paid user only feature that allows you to gather a conversation or a thread into a well-formatted web page, which you can further customize—adding images or other media to dress it up. It’s perfect for creating something you want to share publicly or for organizing insights in a coherent way. If your boss often asks you for a quick summary of a subject in the news this is the tool for you. If you need some examples to get your boss to pay for it, have him check out the Perplexity Encyclopedia. Or don’t, pay the $20 a month yourself and enjoy your free time.
Spaces provide a collaborative environment where you can gather multiple threads and pages into one place. The spaces have some ability to have core questions and specify a model to use. You can share a space with up to five others, or even create a publicly facing space. Free users can create and use spaces but Pro users have some advanced features that make the feature a lot more useful. They can upload files for the AI to reference as well as leverage their better options for AI models. It is a feature that Perplexity calls knowledge search to work along side your queries.
[ And apparently a shopping feature that dropped just as this was being finalized. ]
A Few Cool Things You Can Do
Beyond “craft speedy report for my boss or client” there are some more advanced things you can do with perplexity. Some ideas are:
Answering "I Am Wondering About XYZ" Questions
If you’ve ever found yourself caught in a spiral of curiosity, wondering about a random topic, Perplexity can be your go-to. The ability to get an instant answer with credible references is ideal for those of us who love to dig into new subjects. Whether you’re wondering about the origins of a certain dish, the latest climate policy developments, or the history of an obscure event, Perplexity’s fast and referenced responses make exploring easy and reliable.
Vacation Planning with Spaces
Another magical use case is vacation planning. Using Spaces, you can set up a custom prompt with key details about your family, preferences, and travel parameters. As you gather more details—itineraries, hotel reservations, must-visit attractions—you can easily add them into the space if you have Pro. The best part? Perplexity’s real-time updates mean it’s often a step ahead using ChatGPT. The information is much fresher and you click into the sources to confirm.
Where Perplexity Falls Short
While Perplexity has some impressive strengths, it still has limitations like any tool. One place where it struggles with very specific, time-sensitive queries like, “What were the best soccer goals last week?” or “Which are the best matches this Sunday?” The tool isn't designed for hyper-current, niche timelines—it’s more for getting an overview of what’s happening right now.
It’s also not as strong when it comes to creative tasks. If you’re looking to brainstorm, draft, or edit in a collaborative, creative capacity, tools like ChatGPT still have the upper hand. Editing content or working through multiple creative versions of a project can be cumbersome with Perplexity.
A final downside is yet to arrive — ads are coming to the platform in the form of sponsored follow-up questions.
Data Privacy
Perplexity seems to be doing a good job with user privacy at least. They let you opt out of "AI Data Retention" -- make sure to flip this on if you have not already. In addition, ads are coming to the platform and there has to be some tracking to make that work.
Free or Pro?
Free comes with a few pro queries per day if you just need this occasionally, that is probably good enough. But your $20 a month for Pro is well spent. Pages really are a killer app -- even if you use them just for yourself. The choice of AI engines and ability to use files are also very worthwhile. Keep an eye out for promotions -- with a big round of funding coming I could see them wanting to grow user numbers in the not horribly distant future.
Further Reading and Tutorials
, as always, has a really good guide on the product with plenty of further reading.If you are the video sort, this is a great way to get started. Note that collections is now spaces — but the content is pretty spot on.
Perplexed Enough?
Perplexity is an exciting tool for anyone who loves exploring ideas, staying updated, and diving deep into specific topics. With features like Pages and Spaces, it goes beyond a simple search engine, giving you the ability to curate and collaborate in ways that feel dynamic and engaging. While it’s not perfect for every use case, especially those that require a creative touch or hyper-specific timelines, it’s a fantastic addition to your AI toolkit for knowledge discovery and real-time search. It is a Distiller's Choice product.
The Look
If we can get things like Geothermal energy figured out, we are in for an age of exponential growth. Azeem Azar shares 10 charts on why this is the case.
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