I tried replacing Google Search with Perplexity. It didn’t go well TechTricks365

It’s no secret that Google Search is in a weird place right now. The regular search experience has seen better days, with ads and unhelpful results making the search engine feel far less helpful than it was a few years ago. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence features like AI Overviews and AI Mode aren’t where they need to be.

Despite its imperfections, Google Search has remained my go-to search engine. But why should it when there are so many other options out there? Thinking it might be time for a change, I recently ditched Google Search and switched to one of its biggest competitors: Perplexity.

I installed the Perplexity app on my Pixel 9a, set it as the default search engine on my Mac mini, and started using Perplexity for all the things I’d normally use Google Search for. There are things about Perplexity I quite like, but after spending a week with it, I’m ready to go back to Google.

I’ll explain my return to Google Search in a moment, but first, I want to talk about two aspects of Perplexity that really stood out to me — the first being follow-up questions.

Perplexity is an AI-powered “answer engine,” meaning it works in the same general fashion as ChatGPT or Gemini. In addition to being able to ask more complicated questions with more natural language, you can also ask follow-up questions based on previous searches.

One day, for example, I searched “iOS 26 developer beta” to find information about its availability. I then wanted to know when the public beta would be released, so I typed, “when will the public beta be ready” as a follow-up. Perplexity understood I was referring to iOS 26 based on my first search, and just like that, I got the answer I was looking for.

I search a lot of questions like this on any given day, and in these situations, Perplexity is immensely helpful. Now, could I have done two separate Google Searches for these things just as easily? Sure. But it’s great to have both answers on the same page, rather than being scattered across two Google Search tabs. Plus, you know, clear, direct answers that aren’t littered with sponsored links and a million news articles all telling me the same thing.

My second favorite thing about Perplexity came as a bit of a surprise. Next to the main search page is a Discover tab, and just like Google Discover, it’s a vertically-scrolling list of aggregated news stories. However, Perplexity’s version is so much better.

Google Discover has a pretty good understanding of the types of articles I’m interested in (years of data will do that), but the service itself is extremely barebones. You can save articles and like/dislike them, but that’s about it.

Perplexity Discover, meanwhile, makes Google Discover look antiquated by comparison. Rather than a single list for all of your news articles, Perplexity breaks things up into a few different tabs: For You, Top Stories, Tech & Science, Finance, Arts & Culture, Sports, and Entertainment. You can save stories for later, select favorite topics, and even listen to audio versions of articles (if you have Perplexity Pro).

The articles in Perplexity Discover are AI-generated, but they’re adequately filled with ample source links if you want to dig deeper into a topic. The user interface is also particularly slick, especially on the Android app (though the desktop version looks great, too). I could do with even more filters and preference options, but compared side by side to Google Discover, there’s a lot more to like.

Follow-up questions and the Discover feed are nice features, but what about the meat and potatoes part of a search engine: typing in a couple of keywords and expecting a clear, glanceable result? These are the types of searches I conduct multiple times per day, and, unfortunately, it’s where Perplexity stumbles.

Let’s use an example of searching for a movie. While picking a movie to watch one night last week, I typed in “Before Midnight movie” on Perplexity, expecting to get a brief overview of its runtime, cast, streaming services it was available on, etc. But that’s … not what I got.

Instead, Perplexity showed me two lengthy paragraphs describing the film’s plot and critical response. Is it well-written? Sure, but I don’t find it particularly useful. Google Search, meanwhile, displayed a brief overview of the movie, plus its runtime, release date, budget, Rotten Tomatoes score, streaming service availability, and more. It’s so much more helpful. Where Perplexity’s results often feel like fluff, Google Search gives me concrete, actionable results.

Another search that same day further reinforced this point. I wanted to place a to-go order at a local restaurant, so, like I would on Google, I searched “Food Street” (my favorite local gyro joint) on Perplexity. Once again, I got a lot of fluff. Even with access to my location, Perplexity didn’t quite seem to understand what Food Street I was searching for. It included a description for the one in Portage, MI (the one I was looking for), but it also included restaurants of the same name from New Jersey and Ohio.

Further, Perplexity didn’t provide me with any actual helpful info for the correct Food Street — no hours, online ordering links, or anything of the sort. Google, meanwhile, knew exactly which Food Street I was searching for, while also providing the hours, menu, reviews, and options for order pickup and delivery. There’s no contest here about which result is more helpful.

My other issue with Perplexity is that it’s objectively bad for looking up specific websites or articles. A significant portion of my job involves searching for relevant Android Authority pages to include as backlinks in articles I write. I also often look up articles from our competitors to see what they’re publishing.

For example, I needed to look up if we had published an article about T-Mobile alternatives. Perplexity aggregated a couple of Android Authority articles to give me a decent answer to my “android authority t-mobile alternatives” search, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. Google, on the other hand, showed the list of links I needed.

This is obviously very specific to my job, but there are plenty of other situations where you may need a list of websites/webpages, rather than an AI-generated answer. And with those types of searches, Perplexity isn’t a good choice.

After my week with Perplexity, it’s become obvious that, for the way I use search engines, Perplexity is not the right fit for me. I understand why some people prefer using Plexity over Google Search, and although I tried to see the light, Perplexity just isn’t my cup of tea.

While the potential for complicated searches with multiple follow-up questions is great, that’s ultimately not my primary concern. All I want is to type in a handful of words to get all of the information I need, and as imperfect as it may be, Google Search is still better at that.

I can see myself using Perplexity here and there for specific types of searches (especially now that I have a free year of Perplexity Pro), but when it comes to my daily go-to search engine, I’m heading back to Google Search as soon as I finish this article.