You aren’t stuck with Meta-AI on WhatsApp. Just like ChatGPT, Perplexity AI is now available on WhatsApp as well. If you like immediate answers with direct links to the source, you can open up a chat with Perplexity in WhatsApp and ask away. Here’s how you can start using Perplexity AI on WhatsApp.
Access Perplexity AI on WhatsApp
You can’t use your current Perplexity account, and there is no need to create a new one. You just need to save the following number as a contact and start chatting with it: +1 (833) 436-3285. Alternatively, you can use this WhatsApp shortlink to directly start chatting.
Since it doesn’t require a Perplexity account, you won’t be able to save your conversations or connect them with your existing account. However, it still remembers the conversation and answers accordingly. Even if you delete the chat at your end, it will still remember and refer to it.
Using Perplexity AI in WhatsApp
As of writing, Perplexity allows you to ask your queries using text, voice notes, and images. The answers are summarized and usually limited to one paragraph. Even with short answers, it still provides all the sources from which it picked up the information. We tried asking long questions requiring detailed answers, but it always summarized the answer in a short paragraph.
You can also ask it to generate images, and follow up to edit the generated image. The generated images are provided in the same chat, similar to receiving a photo from a contact. The image will automatically appear in your WhatsApp media files to save, and you can edit or forward it as well.
In our testing, it replied as fast as any other AI tool for text questions, but took 30-60 seconds for image generation. For some reason, it took too much time to process voice notes, and sometimes even returned with an error.
Like any other contact, you can use all the features of WhatsApp to make your chat better, like forwarding messages or swiping right on a message to reply to it. Interestingly, you can also share your location with it and it will acknowledge it, but it won’t open or identify it for privacy reasons.
Compared to WhatsApp’s built-in AI, Perplexity has many limitations. Its answers are extremely short, and image generation can take quite a while to provide results. Meta-AI offers detailed answers with sources and takes only a few seconds to generate an image.
However, Perplexity still has an upper hand when it comes to up-to-the-minute information with direct links to the sources. It also marks the information to tell exactly where it was picked up from, making it easier to validate information. You might also want to use it if you prefer the image generation capabilities of Perplexity AI.
Perplexity CEO has also confirmed that more features are coming, including video generation, memes, fact-checks, and assistant functions. There are also plans to integrate the AI into WhatsApp groups, but that can take some time due to API limitations.
Overall, being able to access Perplexity from WhatsApp definitely eases things up for users who don’t want to leave WhatsApp’s interface and want the latest information with proper citation. Especially if you are a teacher using AI to create lesson plans.
