Built This Week/AI Tools

AI Tools

Perplexity

We use Perplexity as the research step inside automations rather than as a daily chat app; it feeds company research into an n8n sales workflow, and it already sends traffic to our sites.

By Jordan Metzner & Sam Nadler · From our episodes · Updated October 2026

Watch: Episode 17, Sora API, AI Automations, and Apple’s M5 Chip from 13:24

Our verdict on Perplexity

We use Perplexity as a research engine inside automations, not as our everyday chat app. Its clearest job on the show is the company research step in an n8n workflow that writes cold emails to CEOs. Beyond that, our evidence is mostly news and passing opinions, so this review is short on purpose.

What we built with Perplexity

  • n8n sales outreach workflow (Russell 2000 CEOs) (October 2025): a scheduled workflow that takes a list of Russell 2000 companies, uses Perplexity for additional research on each one, pulls the CEO's email from a contact data API, and has ChatGPT write a structured, customized email. Results go to Google Sheets and the email is drafted and sent from Gmail. Jordan ran it live in Episode 17, at 13:24.

In the same episode Jordan generated a second workflow with Claude to invite podcast hosts onto the show, and mentioned Perplexity as one way to research podcasts for it. That one was imported as a structure only, so we cannot say how well the Perplexity step worked there.

How we use Perplexity

  1. Give it a list, not a blank question. Our workflow starts by getting the companies, then sets the research topics and questions for each one.
  2. Split the questions per company. n8n splits the question set out so Perplexity researches each company on the same points.
  3. Pace the calls. Jordan added wait steps so the workflow does not spam any of the APIs.
  4. Hand the research to a writing model. Perplexity's output is merged with contact data and sent to ChatGPT for structured output, which is the email itself.
  5. Keep a record. Everything lands in a Google Sheet, so you can check what the research said before or after an email goes out.
  6. Run it by hand first. The workflow is scheduled daily, but a manual run shows each step's logs, which is the easiest way to judge the research quality.

Perplexity as a traffic source

The other way Perplexity shows up for us is as a search channel. In Episode 2 (July 2025, at 14:39), Jordan said NTRVSTA was getting visitors from Google and from LLMs like Perplexity and ChatGPT before we had marketed it at all. His habit is to publish five to ten posts on every new site right away; that episode was about the Ryz Labs Autoblogger, the tool we built to write them.

What we said about Perplexity in the news

In Episode 4, talking about Claude going after the Bloomberg Terminal, Jordan gave Perplexity credit for getting there first.

And so, you know, I think Perplexity is probably the first one who's really started to step up their game as far as, like, financial research goes.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 4

In Episode 30 (February 2026, at 13:25), Jordan read out Perplexity's Model Council for Max users: a swarm of frontier reasoning models working on one question, with a chair model synthesizing the answer. He grouped it with Claude's Agent Teams and OpenAI Frontier as the biggest change since we started the show, the move to agents managing other agents.

Council mode will let you delegate to a swarm of frontier reasoning LLMs.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 30

Where Perplexity falls short

  • We have not tested it head to head. We never compared Perplexity's research against ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini on the show, and we did not test Model Council or the Comet browser.
  • Google is catching up. Autonomy AI's Adir Ben-Yehuda said in Episode 43 (at 21:37) that Perplexity, ChatGPT and other AI startups built the product Google should have built, and that Google is now racing to catch up with its huge distribution.
  • Pricing. We did not cover Perplexity's plans or API pricing.

Episodes featuring Perplexity

  • Episode 2: Perplexity and ChatGPT sending early traffic to NTRVSTA.
  • Episode 4: Perplexity as the first mover in AI financial research.
  • Episode 17: Perplexity as the research step in our n8n sales workflow.
  • Episode 30: Model Council and the shift to multi-agent tools.
  • Episode 43: Adir Ben-Yehuda on AI search and Google.

FAQ

How do you use Perplexity in an automation?

In our n8n sales outreach workflow, Perplexity researches each Russell 2000 company. That research is merged with contact data and passed to ChatGPT, which writes a customized email to the CEO.

Is Perplexity good for financial research?

In July 2025 Jordan said Perplexity was probably the first AI company to really step up for financial research, and saw it as one of several LLM players going after the Bloomberg Terminal. We have not run our own financial research tests with it.

What is Perplexity Model Council?

As Jordan read it in the February 2026 news, Model Council lets Perplexity Max users delegate a question to a swarm of frontier reasoning models, with a chair model synthesizing one answer. We covered it as news and did not test it.

Does Perplexity send traffic to websites?

For us, yes. In Episode 2 Jordan said NTRVSTA, our AI interview tool, was getting traffic from LLMs like Perplexity and ChatGPT as well as Google before we had marketed it.