Generative AI: Perplexity v ChatGPT

Hi everyone and welcome back ??

In my "AI for EAs" blog I aim to provide executive assistants with insights into the use of various AI tools. In this article I’ll be focusing on two generative AI tools - large language models (LLMs) Perplexity and ChatGPT.

Generative AI is a subfield of artificial intelligence and focuses on teaching machines to create new content or synthetic data. Both Perplexity and ChatGPT are examples of generative AI models that have gained prominence over the last few years, but differ in their functionality and ways to support us in our roles.?

Benefits for Executive Assistants

Generative AI tools such as Perplexity and ChatGPT can benefit executive assistants in various ways. They can be used to automate repetitive tasks such as drafting emails, generating reports, or summarising information. These tools can also assist in creating various types of content, including articles, memos, and presentations, thereby saving time and increasing productivity. Additionally, they can help in generating creative content for marketing or communication purposes.

Perplexity and ChatGPT: differences in approach and capabilities

Perplexity

• Functionality: Perplexity AI operates as a chatbot-style search engine, allowing users to ask questions in natural language. It gathers information from various sources on the web, including academic databases, news outlets, YouTube, and Reddit, and provides users with a summary containing source citations, enabling them to verify the information and dive deeper into a particular subject.
• Responses: Perplexity AI is restricted to summarising web articles and providing links and recommendations in response to inquiries. It lacks the ability to engage in conversation or explain articles in greater detail.
• Factual Accuracy: It strives to provide accurate and up-to-date information, making it a reliable tool for obtaining accurate data, unlike ChatGPT and its hallucinations.?

ChatGPT

• Functionality: ChatGPT is geared towards providing natural and engaging conversations, capable of engaging in almost lifelike conversations with users. It provides responses that are nearly indistinguishable from natural ones, making it a preferred choice for users who seek interactive dialogues2.
• Responses: ChatGPT provides engaging conversational dialogue and responds to user inquiries utilising its massive dataset of text and code to generate responses. It is capable of engaging in almost lifelike conversations with users.
• Factual Accuracy: ChatGPT-3 (the free version) is only trained up to Sept 2022 therefore is unable to generate reliable content on current events. Whilst ChatGPT-4 can provide recent information through internet access and browsing, it may have accuracy issues compared to Perplexity AI, which excels to provide accurate and up-to-date information.

So which is better?

Well, it really depends on the task. Whilst Perplexity AI is more focused on providing accurate and up-to-date factual information from a wide array of reliable sources,? ChatGPT is geared towards engaging conversational dialogue and providing almost life like responses. So, the choice between the two would depend on the specific needs, such as the requirement for accurate information for writing reports and sourcing accurate data or engaging conversations or producing creative content.

If you want to take a look at any of my other articles you can find them on Medium.

See you soon.

Abi x