What Is Perplexity? The AI Search Engine That Cites Its Sources

Perplexity is an AI search engine that was built specifically to answer questions by searching the web and citing its sources. When someone asks Perplexity for a business recommendation, it searches relevant websites in real time, reads through what it finds, and writes an answer with numbered citations linking back to each source it used. Every claim in a Perplexity answer can be traced to a specific webpage.

This makes Perplexity particularly interesting for businesses because the attribution is transparent. When ChatGPT recommends a business, it’s often unclear which sources informed that recommendation. When Perplexity does it, the citations show exactly which Yelp profile, which blog post, or which directory listing contributed. That transparency gives businesses concrete insight into which parts of their online presence are actually driving AI recommendations.

Perplexity is built almost entirely on RAG, searching the live web for every query. This means improvements to a business’s online presence can show up in Perplexity’s answers faster than on platforms that rely more heavily on training data.

Perplexity’s user base is growing rapidly, and it attracts a research-oriented audience: people who want thorough, sourced answers rather than quick conversational responses. For businesses, this tends to mean the queries coming through Perplexity are often more detailed and specific (“best family dentist in downtown Denver that takes Delta Dental insurance”) rather than broad (“dentist near me”).

For businesses working on AI visibility, Perplexity is worth monitoring alongside ChatGPT and Google AI. Because each platform draws on different sources and prioritizes differently, a business might be well-represented on one and absent on another. The same foundational work of building a detailed, consistent presence across multiple online platforms improves visibility across all of them.