Perplexity is getting one of Android's coolest AI features

One of the coolest Android features is coming to Perplexity — unofficially.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) this week, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas announced that a Circle to Search-style feature is coming to Perplexity on Android. 

Also: Perplexity is the AI tool Gemini wishes it could be

In a short video demonstration, a user is chatting with Perplexity about the greatest tennis players of all time. When the user draws a circle around a bullet point about Roger Federer and verbally asks for “the net worth of this guy,” Perplexity identifies the person, conducts an online search, and replies with an answer.

Srinivas didn’t say when exactly the feature would arrive, only saying that it’s “coming soon.” 

When I checked, the feature wasn’t available in the app yet. I was able to use Google’s Circle to Search on the Perplexity app, but of course, that took me out of the app. My test with Google was significantly faster than Perpelxity’s demo, which took about 12 seconds from question to answer, but both arrived at the same information. 

While this is essentially the same function as the official Circle to Search (Srinivas did use the words “Circle to Search,” but that term is trademarked by Google, so Perplexity will have to call it something else), that feature isn’t available on all Android phones (it’s not found on many older devices). This addition opens that technology to a much wider audience.  

Even for devices that can access Google’s Circle to Search, this could potentially be useful. ZDNET’s Jack Wallen found that Perplexity gave better, more accurate responses than Gemini, solved problems better and followed up better, cited its sources better, and even functioned better as a search engine. In my own testing, I preferred Perplexity over Gemini as my default phone assistant. 

Also: Android’s Find My app now tracks people too – here’s how it works

If this feature works as well as Google’s version, it is another reason to consider using Perplexity. 

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