I got a year of free Perplexity Pro with my Revolut sub. At first I really, really liked it. It felt faster, better, and smarter than (free) ChatGPT. But instead of getting better (or at worst staying at the same level), it seems like it gets worse and worse instead.
For a few months now I have it that it randomly switches to another language for like 1–2 words (most often Japanese) mid sentence.
It feels like it got worse at referencing earlier parts of the same convo.
For example, I asked it to compare a 9‑year‑old flagship phone chip to the newest model of the smartwatch the same company produces. I used the short version of the phone name (left away the company name since I thought the relation would be obvious enough).
It then asked what I meant by the short version, if I meant the watch of a competitor, if I meant some random vacuum robot, or if I meant something entirely different.
I then said the full phone name and it gave me back a summarization of “Is Phone Name still usable as a daily driver in 2026?”
Something I never asked.
> I got a year of free Perplexity Pro with my Revolut sub. At first I really, really liked it. It felt faster, better, and smarter than (free) ChatGPT. But instead of getting better (or at worst staying at the same level), it seems like it gets worse and worse instead.
Same experience here. I think I started using Perplexity for researching stuff before ChatGPT had search and particularly before I had access to Pro mode. Then I experienced the very same thing as you, the Perplexity experience got faster, but also quality degraded a lot, until eventually ChatGPT + search tool + Pro just completely overtook it. Some queries might take 20-30 minutes to fully complete, but then the results are also really good and extensive.
For a few months now I have it that it randomly switches to another language for like 1–2 words (most often Japanese) mid sentence. It feels like it got worse at referencing earlier parts of the same convo. For example, I asked it to compare a 9‑year‑old flagship phone chip to the newest model of the smartwatch the same company produces. I used the short version of the phone name (left away the company name since I thought the relation would be obvious enough).
It then asked what I meant by the short version, if I meant the watch of a competitor, if I meant some random vacuum robot, or if I meant something entirely different.
I then said the full phone name and it gave me back a summarization of “Is Phone Name still usable as a daily driver in 2026?” Something I never asked.