Perplexity has turned its AI “reply engine” right into a cellular assistant on Android. The new assistant can reply normal questions and carry out duties in your behalf, corresponding to writing an e mail, setting a reminder, reserving dinners, and extra.
It’s additionally multimodal, which means you possibly can ask it questions on what’s in your display in addition to have it open your digital camera and “see” what’s in entrance of you. In an instance shared by Perplexity, a consumer asks the assistant to “get me a trip.” Once it learns the place the consumer desires to go, the assistant routinely opens Uber with out there rides to that vacation spot.
I attempted it out for myself, and it’s form of neat. When I requested it to “open up a superb podcast,” my telephone began enjoying the most recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube. It labored relatively rapidly, despite the fact that its style could also be questionable.
Using my telephone’s digital camera, Perplexity’s assistant efficiently recognized the promotional Pokémon pack I obtained in a McDonald’s Happy Meal (don’t choose), which I discovered spectacular because the promotion solely began a few days in the past. It additionally helped me write and ship a textual content to a member of the family utilizing the knowledge in my contacts.
Alongside Samsung’s announcement of the Gemini-equipped Galaxy S25, Google revealed that its AI assistant can now full duties throughout a number of apps, in addition to full multimodal requests.
But Perplexity’s assistant doesn’t work throughout each app and with each characteristic. It’s not capable of entry Slack or Reddit, for instance, and I additionally couldn’t use it to go away a touch upon a YouTube video. Right now, the assistant helps Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, together with e mail, messaging, and clock apps, based on Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platick. “We’re persevering with so as to add help for extra apps and extra performance although, so that is simply the start line,” Platnick provides.
You can allow the assistant by the Perplexity app, which prompts you to switch your telephone’s default assistant with Perplexity. From there, you possibly can swipe up on the left nook of your display or maintain down your property button to entry the assistant.
It’s at the moment not out there on the iPhone, nevertheless. “If Apple provides us the appropriate permissions, we’ll make it occur,” Platnick says.
