If you are new to the world of AI, you might want to look at their use cases; one of the best ones is to use them for research. In this guide, we are going to use Perplexity AI, which is a powerful tool designed to simplify and enrich the research process. So, if you want to use Perplexity AI for research, this post is for you.
How to use Perplexity AI for research
Perplexity AI is a smart tool that helps people find and organize information easily. It works like a supercharged search engine, giving clear and simple answers to tough questions by gathering data from many sources. Whether you’re a student, professional, or just curious, Perplexity AI makes research faster and more straightforward, so you can quickly get the useful insights you need.
To use Perplexity AI for research, go over the following steps and tips.
- Access Perplexity AI
- Switch to Acedemic
- Search using Perplexity
- Use other Perplexity features for your research
- Change Perplexity Settings
Let us discuss them in detail.
1] Access Perplexity AI
As mentioned earlier, Perplexiy is the AI tool we are going to access for the purpose of research. To do so, go to perplexity.ai using any browser. It is a simple-to-use AI chatbot setup where you can search whatever you want and get results.
2] Switch to Acedemic
Perplexity, just like any other chatbot, searches multiple sources. For the purpose of research, we are supposed to set it to Acedemic. To do so, when you are on the home screen of Perplexity, hover over the hat icon, which will be labeled as Set sources for search, click on it, and then enable Acedemic.
When conducting research, it is always recommended that you enable this option; however, to increase versatility, you can also enable Web. You can also select the model you want to use for this research; if you are unsure, you can keep it on Auto. Once we have configured everything, we are good to continue our research.
Read: How to download Perplexity AI Desktop app for Windows PC
3] Search using Perplexity
After configuring the search engine, we are good to start our research. To do so, all you need to do is go to the search bar and give it a prompt. Once you give it a prompt and ask it to search, it will go through all the research paper on the Internet and give you a proper result.
The result will be from varied sources. However, if you are doing research, you will need to know the sources. To do so, you can click on the Sources button, and you will get a list of sources at the right side of the window. If you want to go to these sources, just click on them, and you will be redirected. In case you don’t like a resource, you can just remove it by ticking their checkbox and clicking on Remove source.
You can also ask a follow up question in the search box that says “Ask follow-up”, it will look it up and give you the result that you need. If you want to follow up one of the sub-headings, just click on it and Perplexity will start searching for it.
4] Use other Perplexity features for your research
There are other features of Perplexity that you can use for your research. If you want to generate an image or read using an image, you can do that using ChatGPT’s Vision, that has come to Perplexity. To do so, all you need to do is feed Perplexity any diagram of your choice and ask it the question based on that, it will go through the image, and present you with all the information you need.
You can also ask Perplexity to read papers for you, that has to be one of the coolest things about this AI tool. So, if you just click on the Pin button, then attach your paper, give it a prompt, Perplexity will read it, and then give you the answer based on that.
5] Change Perplexity Settings
If you are doing a research, you might not want your input to be used to train the AI modes, as that should be as private as possible. Therefore, we recommend you turn that feature off. To do so, you can follow the steps mentioned below.
- In Perplexity AI, click on the cog icon to open Settings.
- In the General section, disable AI Data usage.
- Additionally, if you want to make some changes to the response language, you can do that by switching the language from the Answer Language section.
You can also pick a different AI model for the purpose of your research. For that, you need to have Perplexity Pro, if you have the subscription, go to AI Model, and then choose a different model.
You might want to take a look at several other amazing niche AI Tools here.
Read: How to use DeepSeek R1 on Perplexity
How to use Perplexity AI for research paper?
Perplexity AI makes research easier by researching and summarizing information from multiple sources. Simply enter your research paper topic or question, and it provides clear, helpful answers. Use it to gather ideas, understand concepts, or find references quickly. It saves time by organizing information, making it easier to focus on writing and analyzing your paper.
Read: How to copy table from Perplexity AI
How can I use AI for research?
AI can be and should be used for research. It has the ability to go through multiple sources and based on that give you a proper result. There are various AI models that you can use for this purpose, however, we recommend you give Perplexity a try.
