This content provides a comprehensive guide to using Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, highlighting its research capabilities, customization options, and a special offer for a free year of Perplexity Pro.
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Without a doubt, Perplexity is one of
the most powerful AI tools out there,
especially if you're doing any type of
research. In this video, I'm going to
show you exactly how Perplexity works
and how I use it in my own workflows to
get some incredible results. But before
I do that, I'm going to show you how you
can get an entire year of Perplexity Pro
absolutely for free. Okay, so if you
head on over to perplexity.ai,
you can of course sign up for a
Perplexity account and start using it
completely for free. But they do have a
pro plan that costs $20 a month.
However, they have this incredible deal
right now that will give you an entire
year of pro for free. And it's really
easy to do. So, there's two ways to
actually do this. For the first method,
you need a PayPal account. And for the
second one, if you don't have a PayPal
account, you can use a Venmo account.
All you have to do is click the
corresponding link in the description
down below. You'll then see the deal
right here. You can click on claim 12
months of Perplexity Pro. Go ahead and
get signed up and boom, you will have an
entire year of Perplexity Pro for free.
There are a few limits on this though.
So, first of all, if this does work for
you, the only thing that I ask in return
is that you let me know in the comment
section down below that it worked and
say thank you. Leaving a comment like
that really helps out my video. Then you
may want to consider watching the rest
of this video where I'm going to explain
to you how to use Perplexi and get it
set up and how I'm using it in my own
workflows. Now, if this doesn't work for
you, if for instance, you see an error
on the screen right here and this is
grayed out, it's probably because you
already have a pro subscription or you
had a pro subscription in the past. So,
this will only work for new accounts
that have never had a pro subscription.
So, as long as the account is new,
you're going to be fine. This is also
only available until December 31st at
midnight. So, make sure you get on this
quickly. It may also only be available
in the United States or certain
jurisdictions. I'm not sure about that.
So, don't come at me if it doesn't work
for you in another country. But
otherwise, I've already helped several
people set this up. They've all gotten
an entire year for free, so it should
work for a lot of you. And now that you
have a Perplexity Pro account set up,
let's dive into how to actually get the
most out of this incredibly powerful AI
tool. Okay, so at this point I'm going
to assume you already have a
PerplexityAI account. If you don't, just
come on over to Perplexity.ai.
All you have to do is put in your email
and you'll have access to a brand new
account. Now, the first thing I suggest
that you do is come into the settings.
So, down here on the left, click on this
down icon and then go ahead and click on
preferences. Now, you'll notice that a
lot of these preferences or a lot of
these settings don't actually do
anything or they're not that important.
I'm just going to show you the important
stuff. So first of all, underneath
artificial intelligence, you'll see
image generation model. So yes,
Perplexity does create images. You can
choose which model it uses. Two of the
best models are Nano Banana and GPT
image 1. However, I already have access
to those through Gemini and Chat GPT. So
I want to try something different. So
I'm putting on Cdream 4.5. But you can
definitely play around with this. See
which image generation model you like
the best and go ahead and leave it on
that one. Next, you have the option of
turning off AI data retention. So,
basically, if this is on, then anything
that you put into Perplexity, they will
then use to help train their models. If
you don't like that or don't feel
comfortable with that, go ahead and
toggle that off. And then finally, under
preferences, we have the sidebar
customization. So, you'll notice that
when you're chatting with Perplexity, we
have this sidebar over here on the left.
So, this is where you can customize it.
And personally, the only one that I
leave on is spaces. I find the other
ones to just be distracting and cause a
lot of clutter, but you can certainly
turn on the ones that you want. The the
discover tab is very very popular. A lot
of people really like that. So, you can
play around with that and see if you
like it. But personally, all I leave on
is spaces. Next, we'll click on the left
here where it says personalization. So,
here at the top, you can give Perplexity
some information about who you are that
it will always know anytime it is
chatting with you. So, for instance, I
could say I create videos on YouTube
about AI. Now, personally, I don't
actually put anything in here. And the
reason being is because Perplexity
already has memory engaged down here.
You can see I turned on both reference
search library and reference saved
memories. This will allow Perplexity to
look at past chats to be able to
understand better who I am. And in
addition to that, create memories or
that's basically information that it
knows about me that it'll then be able
to reference in future chats as well.
that will enable it to give much more
personalized responses. And so I don't
really feel the strong urge to have any
sort of additional information in here,
but of course that's completely up to
you. You could also update your location
or you can turn off location sharing
like I've done. And the last thing that
I suggest is you click on the left here
where it says notifications and go ahead
and toggle these off. Otherwise, it
keeps sending you emails letting you
know that deep research has completed
and it just kind of gets annoying. And
in terms of settings, that's all you
have to do. So now we're going to click
on back. And now we are ready to start
using Perplexity. Now Perplexity may
look like a standard AI chatbot like
ChatGBT or Gemini, but it is built
entirely different. This is really an AI
search engine. So when we type in here a
question, you'll notice two things.
First of all, it is lightning fast.
Second of all, it always gives you
responses that include citations. So
when I asked it, "What's the tallest
building in the world?" It gives me a
response and right next to it I can
actually see just by hovering over it
the sources that it used for that
information. I can click through them
and even click on any of them to open it
up in a new tab to verify for myself
that this information is correct. And
you notice it doesn't just use one
source, it uses multiple sources. So I
have found that this actually is a lot
more accurate than a traditional AI
chatbot. In addition to that, you can
always click on the top here where it
says links. So, these are just like
almost like standard Google search
results right here as well as an images
tab just like you would have on Google
when you search for something and you go
over to images. Now, before you start
searching though, let's make sure that
you actually have everything the way
that you want because you'll notice
there are a lot of buttons down here.
So, let me explain what all of these
mean. So, the first one right here is
just called search. And this will give
you those fast answers to everyday
questions. And I would say about 80% of
the time I just leave it on this because
it's going to get me my answers quickly
and we get all those citations. It's
super accurate even though it's quick.
If you go with the second option, this
one is called research. This is
basically deep research if you've used
that on other platforms. And what this
will do is do the same type of research
that faster or the regular search will
do, but will be a little bit longer and
will be a lot more indepth. But again,
daytoday, I find that the regular search
is super accurate all on its own, which
is why 80% of the time, again, I'm
leaving it on the regular search. The
last one here is called labs, and this
you can use to actually generate
documents, reports, even little apps.
So, it kind of takes your research up a
level. I'm going to switch back over to
search, and then we'll look at the
settings over here. So, the next one is
one of my favorite buttons on Perplexity
because if you click this, you can
actually choose what Perplexity searches
when it's looking for your answer. So,
by default, web is always on, but you
can also toggle on social, which will
search things like Reddit or Twitter.
You can toggle on finance, which will
search things like SEC filings, and you
can even connect your Gmail and Google
Drive, as well as a bunch of other
sources that it can then search through
when looking for your answers. Now, the
reason I love this so much is because I
love toggling on social. A lot of times
I want to hear what people are saying
about certain subjects. Let's say I'm
looking for a review of something like a
new iPhone. I might search and hear what
are people thinking about or saying
about the new iPhone. And with social
on, it will actually be able to pull in
real time information from different
social media platforms to get a real
consensus on whether people like that
new phone or not. I just find it super
helpful to have this on in addition to
having web on. This next button allows
you to choose the model that's going to
be used for your query. Now, Perplexity
has their own model called Sonar, but
you also get access in here to a lot of
top models like OpenAI models, GPT 5.2
for instance, Cloud models, Gemini,
Grock, Kimmy K2. So, you can choose
whichever one that you want. Now,
personally, I just leave this on best.
And that's because I found that no
matter which model I choose, for the
type of prompting that I do and the type
of research that I do, I actually find
it doesn't make a huge difference which
model I select. That's not always going
to be the case, but for what I do, I do
find that to be the case. So, I leave it
on best, and that allows Perplexity to
choose which model is best based on the
question or the prompt I'm putting in
there. Also, know that if you choose,
let's say, GPT 5.2, 2. It's actually
going to not be the same as just using
GPT 5.2 directly inside of chat GBT.
It's different because it's inside of
Perplexi and I'll show you an example of
that later, but again, I leave this on
best. The next button here allows you to
attach different files or you can do
that through a connection like Google
Drive. The next one will allow you to
dictate into Proplexity so you don't
have to type it out. So, I can say
something like, "What's the best truck
to get if I want to get a truck camper?"
So, a lot easier than typing. And then
finally, this one right here is AI voice
mode. So, you can actually have a back
and forth conversation with Perplexity.
So, let me show you some examples of how
I use this and then I'll show you some
other things like spaces and we'll even
compare some of the results against
something like chat GBT. So, I'll show
you something I do every single day when
I come into perplexity. I leave it on
thinking, but underneath this one, I
turn on social. And then I'll say
something like, check Twitter for
important updates in the past 24 hours
related to Gemini, Notebook, LM, Chat,
GBT, or Google AI. Now, you'll notice,
of course, this goes really fast. And
you'll notice all the places it's
checking right here. If I want to see
that again, I can just click right here.
That will give me this dropown. I can
see it checked all these X accounts. It
checked some Google blogs. It checked
Reddit, bunch of other places as well,
including YouTube. Then here are the
actual results. So, it says there were
no major updates on Twitter in the past
24 hours, probably because it was
Christmas. However, here are some recent
highlights that were mentioned more that
came out recently, but weren't in the
past 24 hours. And it kind of breaks all
that down for me. Now, here it says that
Notebook LM now attaches directly inside
of Gemini Chats as a knowledge source.
So, if you wanted to ask a follow-up
question on that, all you have to do is
highlight it, click add to follow-up,
and I'll say something like, "What are
people on X saying about this? Do they
like it?" Go ahead and submit that. And
now it's actually searching for people's
opinions on X, and whether people have
reported liking this or not. And here it
says, "Users on Twitter express strong
enthusiasm for this new integration,
calling it a gamecher that eliminates
tab switching." So, you see, it's giving
me access to all this social
information, and it's giving me a
consensus on what people out there are
saying about any topic that I want to
learn about or want more information
about. Now, another way I love using
Perplexity is to help me do research for
anything that I'm looking to buy. So,
recently, I was looking at potentially
buying one of those um massaging eye
masks. It goes across your eyes, it
heats up, and it actually massages your
face. But, I was kind of wondering, do
they actually work? Do they actually do
anything? So, for this one, what I'm
going to do is I'm actually going to
turn on GPT 5.2. And I'm also going to
run the exact same search inside of Chat
GBT as well, so you can see the
difference between the two of them. So,
here you can see chat GBT gave us a
response. This is a good response, but
it's just a block of text. Inside of
Perplexity, we have pretty much very
similar information, but it's structured
much differently. We have titles here
for each paragraph and then an
explanation. So chat GBT is a lot more
conversational and perplexity even
though again the same model is really
more designed to provide you with
information in a very practical way. So
this is one of the reasons I really like
perplexity when I'm doing research is
because I just want an answer quickly. I
don't want to be having a conversation.
I don't want a friend for this. I just
want information and Perplexity is so
good at providing that. And then
finally, let's talk about spaces. So
over here on the left, you hover over
spaces, you'll see all the spaces that
you've already created or you can create
new ones or you can go ahead and use
these templates. But I suggest you
actually come in here and create your
own because they can be very powerful
and they prevent you from having to
repeat the same information over and
over and over again. So I'll create a
new space here. I'm going to call this
one Twitter
research. And here you can do a few
different things. So, first of all, I
suggest you click where it says add
instructions. And this will allow you to
give precise instructions on how you
want Perplexity or what you want
Perplexity to do anytime you chat with
it inside of this space. So, I can say
to it, always prioritize post from X
when I ask you questions. But, you can
be very detailed in your instructions
here and tell it whatever you want. So
go ahead and click on save there. You
can also click right here where it says
searching with custom instructions. And
then you can do other things like you
can upload files and add URLs as well
that can be used as a search. So if
you've ever used Notebook LM, it's sort
of similar to that, right? With Notebook
LM, you can go ahead and add links to
sources. You can upload files as sources
and then this space will pull from those
when it's answering your questions. So,
this is great if you're working on large
projects and have a lot of information
scattered in a lot of different
locations. You can bring it all into one
space. You can connect to Google Drive.
You can upload PDFs. You can include
links as long as they can access them
publicly. You can put in custom
instructions. And once you start
chatting with it, all your threads are
going to appear here as well. So, it's a
really great way to stay super organized
with your chats. Now, for myself, I
primarily use Perplexity for two
different things. First of all, like I
said before, it's basically a Google
replacement for me. If I need to search
for anything, I just come into
Perplexity and search for it. This is
particularly helpful when I'm on the go.
I can just pull out my phone and use the
app and get a very detailed response. In
addition to that, I always start all my
research for any of my content creation
in here. Once I get that information, I
then put it into Notebook LM or inside
of Gemini and I use that to actually do
my writing. I don't find that perplexity
is all that great when it comes to
writing, either creative writing or even
structured writing, like when I have it
help me with scripts. I just find that
Gemini is much better than that. But
Perplexi is really great for those
initial research stages. And pro tip, I
have one final thing I want to show you.
If you click on down here on your
settings and go ahead and click on
tasks, you can actually set up tasks
that happen every single day for you
automatically. So again, my daily
Twitter check or I have it uh search for
certain Twitter accounts and any updates
from them. I don't do that manually. I
actually set that up as a recurring
tasks task I should say. So every
morning when I wake up, I just pull out
my phone, see what the new news is, and
I'm ready to go and I'm caught up on the
day's news. So there you go. That's
probably 80% of what you need to know
about Perplexity in order to get the
most out of it. But I want to hear from
you now. So, let me know in the comments
section what you're planning on using
Perplexity for or if you already use it,
what you do use it for. Don't be shy. I
love hearing from you guys and I learn a
lot from you guys. So, please share with
me how you're using Perplexity because I
would genuinely love to hear about your
experiences. Otherwise, if you want to
hear about another AI tool that I
mentioned a couple times in this video,
it's one of my favorites, Notebook LM,
check out this video right here. Inside
of this one, I cover some of my favorite
Notebook LM features. So, you definitely
want to check this out. And I'll see you
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