I tried Perplexity's assistant, and only one thing stops it from being my default phone AI

Perplexity AI is going mobile with a new digital assistant for your Android phone. 

The company announced the feature this week, explaining that it lets you use Perplexity as usual, but takes things a step further by integrating with other apps on your phone and chaining commands — meaning you can play media, set reminders, send texts and emails, book rides, learn about things using your camera, and more. 

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Perplexity’s phone assistant is free and doesn’t require a Pro subscription. It’s not available for iOS just yet.

I decided to give it a try for a while and made it my default phone assistant. Just one thing is keeping me from sticking with it for good: its current lack of integration with my calendar. 

What Perplexity could do on my Android phone

I started simple. I asked Perplexity to make a list of the best local date-night restaurants and text them to my wife (I used her name). At first, it made a list of restaurants in Orlando, Fla., over 500 miles away. I asked Perplexity if it knew my location, just to make sure I had all the proper permissions turned on, and it identified where I was. A second attempt, asking the same query, produced a much better list of restaurants in Charlotte, NC — all swanky options perfect for a date night.

To push things a little further, I replied that all of those were too far away and asked for restaurants specifically in my city, just outside Charlotte. It populated another list of nice restaurants limited to my city and asked if it could text the list. When I approved, it sent the list as a text message.

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Playing around with examples I had seen other people use, I was able to get Perplexity to connect with quite a few apps. When I asked for a ride, Perplexity asked where I wanted to go and then fired up Uber with my destination set. Asking it to “Play the most popular songs from the 1960s” brought up Spotify and started playing songs. After a request to “Send an email saying I’m running 10 minutes late,” the assistant asked where it should be sent, asked my preferred email client (Gmail), and sent the message.

To test out the Google Lens-style capabilities, I pointed it at my TV and asked what movies this actor was in (it was Steve Martin in an episode of Only Murders in the Building). Perplexity told me it couldn’t identify people. I asked what TV show I was watching, though, and Perplexity not only identified all three actors on screen, but also identified and summarized the specific episode I was watching.

What Perplexity couldn’t do on my Android phone

There are a few things the assistant can’t do, though. When I pressed for potentially sensitive information, like my bank account balance, it replied that it couldn’t access that information. When I asked what was on my Google Calendar, it said it couldn’t directly see that information (but you do have the option to set events and reminders directly through the Perplexity assistant).

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One of the biggest advantages this has over its competition is the ability to stay in context. I can ask it to find a restaurant, check reviews, tell me what’s good there, make a reservation, and then navigate to it.

Why Perplexity isn’t my default assistant… yet 

Overall, I was pretty impressed with how easy Perplexity AI was to use and what it could handle.

I currently have a Pixel 8 Pro and use the built-in assistant quite a bit for adding calendar events and checking my calendar. The fact that Perplexity can’t access that yet is probably the biggest thing keeping me from making it my default assistant. In just about every other way, it equals or beats my regular assistant. 

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If Perplexity can get a few small things worked out, I may just switch for good.

How to try Perplexity’s phone assistant 

To try it out for yourself, you’ll need an Android device. Download the Perplexity app (the free version is all you need) and head to your phone’s digital assistant settings. You should see “Default digital assistant app.” Tap on that, and choose Perplexity from the list. As you use the assistant, it will ask for various permissions the firs time, including microphone and camera, as will the services you attempt to connect.