Perplexity sits between a search engine and a chatbot: you ask a question, it searches the web in real time, and returns a synthesized answer with clickable source attribution. This solves the hallucination problem that plagues ChatGPT—you can actually verify where the information came from. The free tier lets you ask a few questions per day; paid plans (Pro at $20/month) unlock unlimited queries and access to multiple model options. The main trade-off is that Perplexity still lacks a native mobile app, forcing phone users to rely on the browser.