I mean, what even is the point of Perplexity?

@iamkylebalmer

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Why it worked

The video taps into the current discourse around AI tools and their competitive landscape, offering a critical perspective on a well-known AI product. The hook is engaging and directly addresses a potential user pain point or curiosity.

Summary

The video argues that Perplexity AI has lost its competitive advantage because its core feature of searching and citing sources is now standard in most other AI tools. The creator believes Perplexity is struggling to remain relevant and has no unique selling proposition.

Structure

1Perplexity's past advantage: searching and citing sources.
2Current AI landscape: this feature is now standard.
3Perplexity's struggle for relevance and reliance on free subscriptions.
4Competitors easily replicate Perplexity's features.
5Lack of a unique selling proposition means no moat.

Product placement

Perplexity is discussed as the subject of the video, with its features and market position being analyzed.

On-screen text

Perplexity might be first AI giant to fall Perplexity lost its only advantage

Original caption

Perplexity used to matter because it could search the web and cite sources, which the others didn't. That edge made it useful. Now every big model has research or search modes that do the same thing, so Perplexity's unique selling point is gone. They kept afloat by handing out subscriptions, but I don't know anyone who actually pays. Any cool feature they ship gets copied by Anthropic or OpenAI the next day. No moat, no long-term reason to exist. #learnai #ainews #aitools #perplexity #aisearch

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Transcript

I mean, what even is the point of Perplexity? Sorry guys. Perplexity a couple of years ago was really useful because it had a USP. Basically, it was the only product out in the market that would actually search and cite its sources. So instead of just giving you some made-up answers and hallucinating some kind of nonsense, it would go out, find a bunch of web pages, 20 or 30, read those web pages and then build them into an answer for you. More than that, it would say, okay, this information comes from here, this comes from over here. So you can actually chase down and make sure the things it was telling you were true. Three years ago, that actually mattered. Now, not at all. Because every single one of the other tools, ChatGPT, Gemini, Anthropic, even Grok, they put research modes directly in. So the search tool functionality and the ability to cite other sources, that's pretty standard now. Meaning Perplexity lost any reason for existing. They've managed to eke it out for a couple of years by giving away huge amounts of subscriptions. I don't know anyone who's ever paid for it personally. Then adding things like Perplexity computer, basically trying to find some reason to remain relevant. But whatever they add, the major labs can just integrate into their applications immediately. Any cool feature that Perplexity comes up with? Anthropic or OpenAI, I can add the next day. There's no moat, no way to survive.