Wonder Tools – Jeremy Caplan – “Perplexity is this year’s best new search tool. It uses AI to answer your questions based on online sources. You get concise, relevant summaries with specific citations. These source links allow you to verify information and dig deeper. Read on for examples, limitations, and alternatives.
What’s most useful about Perplexity

• Citations Perplexity provides links to its sources, so you can follow-up on anything you want to learn more about.
• Brevity Instead of long articles or lists of links, get straight-to-the-point answers that save time.
  • Tip: quick searches are fine when you’re just looking for a simple fact (e.g. when did Jordan retire). Pro searches are best for more intricate queries like the ones below. Toggle Pro search on or off in the search box.
• Multi-Step Reasoning Perplexity breaks down complex queries into steps. It shows you the phrases it uses to conduct your search.
  • Tip: write detailed queries with specifics about what you’re looking for. You’ll get a better result than if you just use keywords.
• Focusing Refine your search by specifying preferred sources or domains for more targeted results. You can narrow your search to focus just on videos, academic publications, or social sources like Reddit.
  • Tip: Use a domain limiter to narrow your search to a particular site. Type domain:.gov to focus only on government sites. Or just use natural language to limit Perplexity to certain kinds of sites.
• Follow-ups Ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into a topic, just like a conversation. For visual topics, Perplexity can surface relevant images and videos.
• Collections Group related searches into collections for easy reference and organization. I created one for Atlanta before a recent trip. You can keep a collection private, invite others to edit it, or share a public link.
• Pages Share search results by creating public pages you can customize. Watch a 1-minute video demo. Example: Beginners Guide to Drumming.