ChatGPT Search vs. Perplexity AI: Which Is Daily Go-To?

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ChatGPT Search vs. Perplexity AI: Which Is Daily Go-To?

Hej Ai friends and followers.

Explore the differences between ChatGPT Search and Perplexity AI for smarter browsing and a better search experience.

I am not just an AI enthusiast and daily user, I believe it is the future and will shape how we work, live and use the internet. I am using ChatGPT, Notion AI, some smaller AI services and AI functionalities like in RemNote and of course Perplexity AI, which has actually replaced a traditional search for me.

Now back in early 2023 OpenAI made web search available for select users, which enhanced the whole ChatGPT experience with up-to-date information. It was at first kind of hidden, but now it’s obvious that ChatGPT sees itself as a go-to place for anything search / research related, which is a good thing.

The rumors that ChatGPT would jump on the search train were circulating for quite some time and on October 31st 2024 ChatGPT Search was officially released.

And just weeks later the domain chat.com was bought and redirect users to ChatGPT, which makes sense.

New experience

Once you open the ChatGPT website you can see the difference immediately. Just like any other search the input field is moved into the middle of the page. It looks just like your typical search engine homepage.

And there is even a new globe icon for Plus (at the time of writing).

The globe icon lets you explicitly turn on search, which turns off features like uploading files or images. If you forget to turn it on, but ChatGPT realizes that it needs to search the web because the answer might benefit from a web search, it will still go online.

Now I am really wondering if this could replace Perplexity AI as my main go-to daily search engine, so I put both to the test. Let’s find out how they hold up against each other.

General UI&UX and core functionality

A quick disclaimer upfront: I am using Perplexity Pro and ChatGPT Plus. Some features might not be available if you are on the free tier and ChatGPT web search is at the moment only available to paying customers.

Comparing both side by side shows some obvious similarities and differences.

Both feature a prominent search bar right in the middle of the page, but whereas ChatGPT is reduced to the bare minimum, there is a sidebar and lot’s of buttons on the Perplexity website. But the core search functionality is provided through the input field.

I really like the trending searches ChatGPT shows once search is turned on and I really prefer the minimalistic approach (which will be even more obvious once we get to the actual searches).

Search experience

Before we check out and compare some search examples, let’s have a quick look at the actual search results and how they differ.

Both offer a completely different search experience. While ChatGPT sticks to its minimalistic approach which has some obvious Apple vibes to it (which I really dig), Perplexity looks more mature in my opinion.

The search experience differs a lot depending on the search. While a search like the one above about dinner options might present a map, other could include photos or just a bullet point list. What I really like about the example above is that ChatGPT offers links to websites and you can directly place a call or search for directions (which sends you to Google Maps by the way).

And both offer sources and citations as well, but I will come back to this a little bit later.

It is obvious though that Perplexity offers much more options to continue your search (ie. search for images or generate images — for whatever reason) and overall the experience resembles a lot of a traditional search engine.

Real world examples

I want to test six different scenarios and compare the results. I am not interested in accuracy right now and just like with any generative AI you should double-check the results. They might make faults.

I have started writing this story back in early November, so some results will be different today (ie. the sports scores).

Weather, sports and stocks

Okay so let’s start with a couple of easy tests. I gonna search for the weather in Orlando, Florida, I want to know the current standings in the British Premier League and the Apple stock price.

Both deliver a nice search experience here with slightly different temperatures. The graph Perplexity shows is great, but for some reason they do not provide a source. ChatGPT quotes a number of sources on the contrary.

They both got the stock price right, but note that I had to explicitly query “Apple stock” to get a chart with ChatGPT.

The last search is a real bummer though… you will see in a moment. But first let me explain something about the sources in ChatGPT. They are presented as citations through the result and you can simply hover over one to display the link or you could click on the sources button at the end of the results to display a sidebar on the right side of the browser window.

Now for the sports search I decided to ask about the British Premiere League standings. I did the search on November 3rd. ChatGPT was pretty accurate, whereas Perplexity used outdated numbers and for some reason displayed an upcoming Bears vs. Cardinals game above the standings.

I have no idea what is going on here with Perplexity, because no matter how often I tried it, it always displayed the Bears vs. Cardinals game on top. When I switched of Pro search it got at least the points right.

How to send unknown callers (on iPhone) to voicemail?

After using Perplexity for a while I have switched from inputing keywords into a search bar to actually asking questions. It makes life so much easier.

To change settings on iPhone to send unknown callers directly to voice mail is not that difficult, but in involves a multistep process, so it should be interesting to see if they can (and I am sure they can) provide the right answer. Also, iOS 17 introduced live voicemail, which could be another option to see what the whole call was all about without answering it.

Both did a decent job and ChatGPT mentioned live voicemail as well. But overall this is a tie.

Why can’t I edit the first column in a Notion database?

I am pretty sure this is a question most Notion newbies will ask at one point. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to have a textfield as a first column and I am also sure many would love to change this. But there are some reasons why this is the case. Let’s find out how Perplexity and ChatGPT tackle the question.

Both did a good job explaining the reason behind it.

ChatGPT sticked to its conversational minimalistic style, while Perplexity offered a longer response with bullet points. I honestly don’t understand why ChatGPT doesn’t put the answer in a nicer format. But it is what it is and the answer is still right.

If you start a real conversation though sticking to a chat like interface might be the better option I guess.

Beginner piano lessons?

Okay this is again a basic search, but something that might come up in this way or another. I started learning the piano, which I believe is a great hobby for an adult and it is quite difficult to do this on your own, so I was looking for some beginner courses on YouTube.

Here’s what both came up with:

Obviously it’s generative AI and both came up with different search results and In this case prefer Perplexity’s layout, but I really like that ChatGPT presented the YouTube preview image and a link right in the search results. Overall this is another tie.

Man, it’s a tie!

So let’s face the facts, both did a decent job and frankly it all comes down to personal preference. All search results were similar, but presented differently.

Personally I prefer in most cases the minimalistic approach of ChatGPT, but frankly it doesn’t matter. I have already replaced my preffered seach engine with Perplexity, but might switch to ChatGPT Search in the future because of the additional features. You can read more about it here:

Have you been using an AI search engine or even replaced your traditional search with it?