Good question. Google certainly has a tremendous amount of data, but Perplexity is taking a very different approach from Google and, in many ways, is building a business Google is not equipped to build. Two points I would call out:
#1 - Google has built their business around links and ads. The links (organic listings) get to the top of the page because of SEO. Google has done a good job over the years of cracking down on shady SEO tactics, but I would argue that links that get to the top usually do so because of consistent effort on SEO (e.g. building lots of content, acquiring lots of backlinks, etc.) versus because they are the absolute best answer for the user's question. As it pertains to ads, Google wants to get the most revenue by driving high cost-per-clicks, and it is pretty much entirely pay to play (if you pay enough, your ad will be ranked #1 even if your product or service isn't a great fit for what the user wants).
Perplexity doesn't have an ad or SEO model, so they can focus entirely on sharing links that are most aligned with truth or help to best answer the user's question. Even if Google does move more in an AI direction (which I know they're trying to do), they still have a huge market of ads and SEO folks they can't just totally abandon, which are like an anchor weighing them down.
#2 - Perplexity is built on top of AI chatbots (you can even change your AI model if desired from Chat-GPT to Llama to Claude etc.) with some solid improvements to enhance the user experience (e.g. you can state your knowledge level, from Beginner to Expert, and ask for an explanation suited to that). These models have been trained on massive, massive amounts of data. For that reason, it's not about "Perplexity's data vs. Google's data" it's really more about "The data for all AI chatbots vs. Google's AI chatbot (i.e. Bard) data". You could argue that Google should still have access to more data, but I haven't found Google's AI answers to be any better than what I get from going directly to Chat-GPT or by using Perplexity.
Wouldn’t you consider the sheer amount of data that Google has a huge advantage over competitors like Perplexity?
Good question. Google certainly has a tremendous amount of data, but Perplexity is taking a very different approach from Google and, in many ways, is building a business Google is not equipped to build. Two points I would call out:
#1 - Google has built their business around links and ads. The links (organic listings) get to the top of the page because of SEO. Google has done a good job over the years of cracking down on shady SEO tactics, but I would argue that links that get to the top usually do so because of consistent effort on SEO (e.g. building lots of content, acquiring lots of backlinks, etc.) versus because they are the absolute best answer for the user's question. As it pertains to ads, Google wants to get the most revenue by driving high cost-per-clicks, and it is pretty much entirely pay to play (if you pay enough, your ad will be ranked #1 even if your product or service isn't a great fit for what the user wants).
Perplexity doesn't have an ad or SEO model, so they can focus entirely on sharing links that are most aligned with truth or help to best answer the user's question. Even if Google does move more in an AI direction (which I know they're trying to do), they still have a huge market of ads and SEO folks they can't just totally abandon, which are like an anchor weighing them down.
#2 - Perplexity is built on top of AI chatbots (you can even change your AI model if desired from Chat-GPT to Llama to Claude etc.) with some solid improvements to enhance the user experience (e.g. you can state your knowledge level, from Beginner to Expert, and ask for an explanation suited to that). These models have been trained on massive, massive amounts of data. For that reason, it's not about "Perplexity's data vs. Google's data" it's really more about "The data for all AI chatbots vs. Google's AI chatbot (i.e. Bard) data". You could argue that Google should still have access to more data, but I haven't found Google's AI answers to be any better than what I get from going directly to Chat-GPT or by using Perplexity.
I'd also suggest checking out this interview if you're curious about Perplexity. It's long, but really eye opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-gwvmhyU7A&t=2s.