Perplexity has announced an upgrade of its AI "answer engine" to a mobile assistant on Android. This new assistant can answer general questions from users and perform various tasks on their behalf, such as writing emails, setting reminders, and making dinner reservations.
Perplexity's assistant also features multimodal capabilities, allowing users to inquire about content displayed on the screen and even use the camera to let the assistant "see" objects in front of them.
In a demonstration, a user simply asked the assistant to "call a car," and the assistant automatically opened the Uber app to display available ride options, helping the user quickly find their destination. A reporter experienced this assistant firsthand and found the results impressive. When asking the assistant to "play a nice podcast," it quickly opened YouTube and played the latest episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," responding rapidly, even though the choice of program may be somewhat controversial.
Additionally, using the phone's camera, Perplexity's assistant successfully recognized a promotional Pokémon card that the reporter received in a McDonald's Happy Meal, which was surprising given that the promotion had just started. Furthermore, the assistant helped the reporter write and send a text message to family, proving to be very practical.
When Samsung launched the Galaxy S25 with Gemini, Google also revealed that its AI assistant can now complete tasks across multiple applications and handle multimodal requests. However, Perplexity's assistant currently does not support all applications and features, such as accessing Slack or Reddit, and the reporter was unable to use the assistant to comment on YouTube videos. Currently, the assistant supports applications like Spotify, YouTube, Uber, as well as email, messaging, and clock functions. Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick stated that they will continue to add support for more applications and features.
Users can enable this assistant through the Perplexity app, which prompts them to replace their phone's default assistant with the Perplexity assistant. After that, users can access the assistant by swiping up or long-pressing the home button in the bottom left corner of the screen. Currently, this assistant is not available for iPhone, but Platnick stated, "If Apple grants us the necessary permissions, we will implement this feature."
Key Points:
🌟 The AI assistant launched by Perplexity supports functions such as writing emails, setting reminders, and making restaurant reservations.
📱 The assistant has multimodal capabilities, allowing it to recognize screen content and identify surrounding objects through the camera.
🚀 Currently, the supported applications include Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, and the list is continuously expanding.