Perplexity has turned its AI “reply engine” right into a cell assistant on Android. The brand new assistant can reply basic questions and carry out duties in your behalf, similar to writing an electronic 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 screen in addition to have it open your digicam and “see” what’s in entrance of you. In an instance shared by Perplexity, a consumer asks the assistant to “get me a experience.” As soon as it learns the place the consumer needs to go, the assistant routinely opens Uber with accessible rides to that vacation spot.
I attempted it out for myself, and it’s type of neat. After I requested it to “open up an excellent podcast,” my telephone began enjoying the newest episode of The Joe Rogan Expertise on YouTube. It labored somewhat shortly, regardless that its style could also be questionable.
Utilizing my telephone’s digicam, Perplexity’s assistant efficiently recognized the promotional Pokémon pack I bought in a McDonald’s Completely happy Meal (don’t choose), which I discovered spectacular for the reason that 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.
However 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 depart a touch upon a YouTube video. Proper now, the assistant helps Spotify, YouTube, and Uber, together with electronic mail, messaging, and clock apps, in keeping with 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 possibly can allow the assistant by means of the Perplexity app, which prompts you to interchange your telephone’s default assistant with Perplexity. From there, you possibly can swipe up on the left nook of your display screen or maintain down your property button to entry the assistant.
It’s presently not accessible on the iPhone, nevertheless. “If Apple offers us the best permissions, we’ll make it occur,” Platnick says.
