For six weeks, every time we needed to research something for our own work — competitor pricing, recent product launches, regulatory changes — we ran the query through both Perplexity Pro and ChatGPT Plus. We kept a log. The result wasn't even close.
Perplexity was right more often, faster, and cited better sources.
Most AI tools cite sources the way undergraduates cite Wikipedia — the link is there to look credible, not because you're actually expected to click it. Perplexity is different. The in-line citations point to the specific paragraph in the source document that supports the claim.
We spot-checked 50 citations across 10 queries. 46 of 50 took us directly to the supporting text. Compare this to ChatGPT Plus with Bing, where our spot-check found the source document in about 70% of cases.
Chinese-language research is a real limitation. Perplexity's index skews heavily towards English-language sources. For the Asia-Pacific professional who works in both languages, this is the gap that matters.