Cybersecurity
Island Just Hit $6.4 Billion Selling Companies a Web Browser
Island just raised a $400M Series F at a $6.4B valuation for its enterprise browser — as AI agents turn the humble tab into the place companies police their software.
Perplexity review
8.8/10★★★★★AI answer engine with numbered citations on every answer and a choice of models
- Best for
- Getting a quick, sourced answer you can check claim by claim
- Price
- Freemium · from $20/month
Free: Unlimited basic searches and about 5 Pro searches a day - Platforms
- Web, iOS, Android
- Made by
- Perplexity AI, San Francisco, USA · since 2022
- App store ratings
- iOS 4.8★ (518K) · Android 4.6★ (2.2M)
What it is
Perplexity answers searches with a written summary and numbered inline citations, and follow-up questions keep the thread going. Basic cited search works without an account, while Pro adds unlimited Pro Search, a model picker and daily Research reports.
What the AI does
- Cited answers from live web results
- Pro Search for harder questions
- Research mode for multi-step reports
- Choice of GPT, Claude and Gemini models on Pro
- Search with uploaded photos and files
Pros and cons
- Numbered inline citations are the easiest to audit
- Basic search works without signing in
- One Pro plan covers several frontier models
- Highly rated iPhone and Android apps
- Free tier's Auto mode doesn't say which model answered
- Citations can sound confident without fully backing the claim
- Signed-out searches disappear after 14 days
How it scores
The benchmark for cited AI search: clear sources, fast answers and model choice, though answers still need checking.
Feature checklist · 7 of 9
- Inline citations linked to each source (yes)
- Follow-up questions that keep the context (yes)
- Deeper multi-step research mode (yes)
- Search with a photo or image (yes)
- Choose which AI model answers (yes)
- Works without an account (yes)
- Ad-free results (free or on a paid plan) (no)
- Doesn't profile you or train AI on your searches (no)
- iPhone and Android apps (yes)
Alternatives
See all Perplexity alternatives, ranked →
- Google AI Mode 8.6/10Anyone who wants AI answers without leaving Google or paying
- ChatGPT search 8.4/10Searches that are one step in a longer task
- Brave Search 8.3/10Privacy-minded people who want free AI answers without a Google account
- Kagi 7.8/10Heavy searchers happy to pay for ad-free results and model choice
Perplexity vs Google AI ModePerplexity vs ChatGPT searchPerplexity vs Brave SearchPerplexity vs KagiPerplexity vs Microsoft Copilot SearchPerplexity vs DuckDuckGo Search Assist
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Sources
▸▸ Perplexity in the news
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