I’m switching from ChatGPT to Perplexity Pro [I’ll call “PP”], because I’m confident now in reports from other techies and authors, including their satisfaction with it. Currently $20/mth, plus the option of separately paid for “credits” that can be applied to deeper research.
I like how it easily creates PDFs for any session. The PDFs (and other documents in other formats) can be stored and managed locally or in the cloud, so I can build, manage, and share my own database of research topics.
I already enjoy sharing links to conversations with my kids and other people, which they can then continue to interact with in Perplexity (not PP) for free, after they ignore the opening form that asks them to log in.
I think I’ll be able to finally build workflow processes, e.g. on projects I’ve been wanting to accomplish for years, but just haven’t had the skill to diligently plan and execute them.
Some projects will include software coding and web page building, but I don’t know yet how much I may or may not use PP for the coding and web page work. Some of that work may be easier or more comprehensive in other brands of AI, or I might eventually add on Claude Code. Perhaps learning more about GIT can help, where atm I’m still a novice. But PP should help me dive into those other tools as necessary.
I expect my workflows will evolve as I learn how to adjust my AI habits, and it seems that PP has ways to combine individual conversations into more comprehensive sets of conversations for specific topics, or at least that’s my initial impression.
Their Comet browser has general usage quirks, e.g. some websites might act strangely or deficiently. But Comet, built on the Chromium base, is made to focus on supporting PP, which so far seems to be a big plus.
Other consumer level AIs (e.g. Google Gemini on Chrome and Microsoft Copilot on Edge) have their own quirks, too. I like their in-browser convenience, but e.g. I hate Copilot’s multi, compartmentalized design, making it impossible at times for me to even remember where I started each conversation… e.g. did it start within and Office app, or on which tab in which Edge window. Separate conversations are not even aware of each other, so even asking Edge “where is that conversation I had about blah blah” is either a pia to find again, or has somehow just disappeared permanently.
Privacy-wise, I haven’t yet looked into the risks taken to trust PP with knowing me and my workflows more deeply. IMO they already have a leg up on catering to the more technically oriented and workflow audience, and it just occurred to me that they could get closer to Apple’s strategy of developing privacy-centric AI products. Apple is certainly taking their time coming up with any kind of flagship AI product. While Microsoft’s pumping so much money into AI, I expect they may eventually excel at providing useful workflow and office-level management. (Pure speculations on my part.)
Those are my first impressions, and some of them are likely to be inaccurate, or manifest differently in other people’s experience. So I’m definitely open to learning from other people’s experiences here.
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