Perplexity has turned its AI “answer engine” into a mobile assistant on Android. new assistant Can answer common questions and perform tasks on your behalf, like composing emails, setting reminders, booking dinner, and more.
It's also multimodal, meaning you can ask it questions about what's on your screen as well as it can open your camera and “see” what's in front of you. In An example shared by PerplexityA user asks the Assistant to “get me a ride.” Once it knows where the user wants to go, the Assistant automatically opens Uber with available rides to that destination.
I tried it myself and it's pretty neat. When I told it to “open a good podcast,” my phone started playing the latest episode. joe rogan experience on Youtube. It worked pretty fast, even if the taste was questionable.
Using my phone's camera, Perplexity's Assistant successfully identified the promotion pokemon I got the pack at a McDonald's Happy Meal (don't criticize), which I found impressive since the promotion just started a few days agoIt also helped me write and send a message to a family member using my contacts' information.
Along with Samsung announcing the Gemini-powered Galaxy S25, Google unveils its AI assistant Can now complete tasks across multiple apps, as well as multimodal requests.
But Perplexity's Assistant doesn't work with every app and every feature. For example, it's not able to access Slack or Reddit, and I couldn't even use it to leave comments on YouTube videos. Currently, the Assistant supports the email, messaging, and Clock apps, as well as Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, according to Perplexity spokeswoman Sarah Platik. “We're continuing to add support for more apps and more functionality, so this is just the starting point,” Platnick says.
You can enable the assistant through Perplexity AppWhich prompts you to change your phone's default assistant to Perplexity. From there, you can swipe up on the left corner of your screen or press and hold your Home button to access the Assistant.
However, it is not currently available on iPhone. “If Apple gives us the right permission, we'll make it happen,” Platnick says.