Perplexity AI made waves back in 2022 by blending AI smarts with web search, letting us find stuff online more easily and with less hassle.
Now, they’re taking it up a notch. You can actually set Perplexity AI as your phone’s default digital assistant. That means you can use it for all sorts of things, like sending emails and texts, setting reminders, or booking a ride, and it can handle complex, multi-step commands. It’s free for all Android users, so let’s get it set up! First off, you’ll need to grab the app from the Play Store. Once it’s installed, sign in using your Google account, email, or SSO.
Setting Perplexity AI as your Default Assistant
To get Perplexity AI running as your default assistant, you need to switch it over from Google Assistant or Gemini.
- Open the Perplexity app, then tap your profile picture in the top-left corner to go to Settings.
- Scroll down to the ‘About’ section and tap on ‘Enable assistant’.
- Tap on ‘Default digital assistant app’ to select your phone’s default assistant.
- Choose Perplexity AI from the list.
Using Perplexity for Online Searches
You can use the Perplexity app for online searches just like you would with Google or any other search engine. But even better, you can use the AI assistant to search without even opening the app.
- Use your phone’s gesture for activating the assistant - like swiping up from the bottom or tapping and holding the home button. You’ll see the Perplexity Assistant interface at the bottom of the screen. Just type or speak your question and hit ‘Send’.
- The AI assistant will give you an answer and list its sources at the top, so you can check them out yourself.
Using Perplexity to Perform Actions
The AI isn’t just for looking things up. You can ask it to handle actions like setting reminders or making calls.
Note: If Perplexity isn’t working correctly, a restart of your device might fix it.
- Activate the AI assistant and try giving it a voice command like “Call [name]”. If you’ve given Perplexity the right permissions (like access to your contacts), it should be able to make the call.
- You can also ask it to “Set a reminder” for a certain time, and it’ll confirm the reminder is set.
- If you ask it to write an email or message, it’ll give you a text box. Tapping that opens the relevant app, like Gmail or Messages.
- As a multimodal AI, Perplexity can also analyze what’s on your screen. To use it, go to the page you want info on and ask, “What am I looking at?”.
- The assistant will then give you information based on what it sees and you can ask follow-up questions.
- Perplexity AI also has Google Lens built in. Just activate the assistant and tap the Lens icon at the bottom left.
- Point your phone’s camera at an object, and ask about it.
- After analyzing the image, Perplexity will provide information about the object.
- You can also get a summary of your notifications. Just ask: “Can you provide me with a notification summary?”
- You’ll need to make sure Perplexity has access to your notifications for this.
Note: If Perplexity AI still has issues, restart your device after setting it as default. Keep in mind, it doesn’t work in all apps yet and may have a few bugs.
Chaining Commands
Perplexity remembers previous info, letting you link commands together.
- Start by activating the AI and typing a command such as “Create a list of the best upcoming shonen anime in 2025.”
- Wait for the results, then type another command.
- For example, type something like “Share this list with [name] via a text message”.
- The AI will then compose a message with the list to the recipient in your messages app, which you can review before sending. You can chain many commands in this way.
Additional Info
- Perplexity AI Assistant speaks 15 languages, including English, Japanese, and German.
- Beyond what’s been covered above, you can use it to play music in apps like Spotify, play videos on YouTube, set alarms, or even book rides with Uber.
- While some of the features may overlap with what Gemini can do, Perplexity may perform better in some instances. For example, it can handle reminders that don’t have an exact time.
- Restaurant booking, however, isn’t quite perfect, but the developers are working on it.