Perplexity Assistant for Android With Image Analysis and Web Search Introduced

Perplexity introduced a virtual assistant for Android devices on Thursday. Powered by the company's answer engine, the artificial intelligence (AI) assistant can answer questions, generate messages, as well as perform some app-based tasks as well. Additionally, the Perplexity Assistant also has multimodal capabilities and can access the user's camera to analyse what the user is looking at. The virtual assistant is being added as a part of Perplexity's Android app and will be available to all users with compatible devices for free.

Perplexity Launches an AI-Powered Assistant

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the official handle of Perplexity announced the new AI assistant for Android devices. Dubbed Perplexity Assistant, it is powered by the same answer engine that runs Perplexity's search platform. The post highlighted that it uses reasoning, web search, and app connectivity to perform a wide range of tasks.

Announcing the new feature, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said, “This marks the transition for Perplexity from an answer engine to a natively integrated assistant that can call other apps and perform basic tasks for you.”

Gadgets 360 staff members were able to see and access the virtual assistant. Users can find Perplexity Assistant within the updated app. Once it has been set up, users can summon the assistant to see a bottom sheet with a redesigned logo and blue dot-matrix waveform. The latter indicates that the AI is currently listening. Once a prompt has been added, three moving white lines appear indicating that the request is being processed.

At the bottom of the screen, a camera icon, a settings icon, and a keyboard icon have been added. The camera icon allows the AI assistant to access visuals from the device's camera. Users can point the device towards an object and ask Perplexity Assistant a question about it, and it can answer the queries.

Coming to the tasks it can perform, the company stated that Perplexity Assistant can book dinner reservations, find a song, book a cab, draft emails, set reminders, and more. Currently, the assistant can access Spotify, Uber, and YouTube apps and can complete tasks that include accessing them.

Apart from accessing the apps, the virtual assistant can browse the web to answer a wide range of queries. Powered by AI models, it can also maintain context from one task to another within the same session. This means users can ask follow-up questions without having to repeat the original prompt over and over.