AI Search vs Google: A Comprehensive Comparison Analysis

AI search tools like Perplexity outperform Google for direct answers, but Google excels in speed and specific queries.

### Comparing AI Search Tools: Search GPT, Perplexity, and Google
* 🔍  The exploration of whether AI search tools like Search GPT and Perplexity can challenge Google's search monopoly is underway, with testing of **various queries**.
* 🧪  A comparison of Search GPT revealed it provides AI-generated results with images, but it sometimes lacks accuracy, leading to potential **"hallucinations"** in its answers.
* 💻  Perplexity, on the other hand, offers a more feature-rich experience, allowing for **related searches and document attachments**, making it **more versatile** than Search GPT.
* 🏆  Google often outperformed both AI tools when it came to providing **quick, concise answers**, particularly for straightforward queries like Olympic results, while also displaying a **clear advantage in recency** for newly released content.
* 📝  In coding-related searches, both AI tools provided **accurate answers quickly**, whereas Google often required **more effort to find the correct information**.
* 🏢  For specific queries like venue capacities or local movie theaters, Perplexity excelled, while Google struggled to deliver relevant results, showing that **AI searches can outperform traditional search engines in niche cases**.
* 📊  Overall, while AI search tools are promising, Google remains superior for **direct website searches and quick access to specific information**, but Perplexity currently leads in **functionality and user experience**.
* 🚀  As AI search continues to develop, the landscape may shift, but for now, **Perplexity stands out as the preferred choice** for those seeking **detailed answers** over traditional search methods.

is AI search legit, and is Google's search monopoly finally being threatened? That's what we're going to be figuring out today. I got access to Search GPT by OpenAI. I also have a Perplexity account, and we're going to be testing both of those things against Google search. So, let's see which one is the best. So, I made a post on X saying that I'm testing Search GPT vs. Perplexity vs. Google. What kind of searches should I test out? And you all gave me a bunch of great searches to test. So, I'm going to be going through some of these today. And of course, if you're not following me on X, be sure to do so at Matthew Burman. So, first, a quick review. This is Search GPT. You search for something, and it's kind of like a very simple version of Perplexity. And maybe I'm giving my hand away already, but let me just show you how this works. So, I'm just going to type Olympic results and hit enter. And let me

show you what it does. So, no matter what you type, it is going to give you images on the left side. It doesn't matter if you need the images or not; it is going to find them and deliver them to you. Then, for this query, I simply typed Olympic results, and here it is. So, Paris 2024 Olympics highlights. So, it gave me some information about which countries won which medals. Now, keep in mind this is all AI-generated, and of course, whenever you're doing things with AI, there might be hallucinations. And that's actually what I've heard is a big downside to using AI search, is it will tell you things with complete confidence that are just false. Down here, it gives you the citations. You can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down to give it some reinforcement learning. If you click here on the little link, it gives you the list of links on the left side that it cites. And you can also just click this sources button right here. And of course, because it's an LLM, you can ask follow-up

questions so show me the medals at the United States won, and here we go. It's listing all of them with citation, which is really cool. Maybe not the best interface for a long list, but still, it's really nice. Now, if I go to any of them, I should be able to click into it and get the picture. So, it's basically a chat just like you would chat with ChatGPT, which is very different from how Google would work. Now, on to perplexity. Perplexity is essentially what Search GPT maybe aims to become. It uses OpenAI models under the hood, but it is much more feature-rich. So, let's see Olympics results. Now, I don't have a pro account. Maybe I should get one, but right now, I don't have one. So, I can already tell it's able to create an interface on the fly, which is much nicer. It has images built in, just like Search GPT. You can also generate an image. You can do collections of different searches, and then here's related searches. You can share. You can rewrite. It is just a much

more feature-rich version of search GPT. And then, just like search GPT, you can ask follow-up questions, and it also allows for attaching text or PDFs, so there's that. And then for Google, when to type Olympics results. And interestingly for this search, I would actually say that Google won, right? CU. It gave me this nice little graphic right here where I can easily see which countries won how many medals and of each type. Now, this is where I actually think Google might have a slight edge when the search has this built-in result where it's giving me the exact answer that I'm looking for rather than 10 blue links. Anytime that it's going to give me 10 blue links, I don't think that's going to be the best. So now you can see the difference between the three results. Now, obviously, you can click into any of these tabs, which are super helpful in Google, so I can get news about it, images about it, videos about it, shopping, etc. Let's get into the actual testing now. All right, so first

Daniel Miller suggested searching how to get your IP address using the new IP Command in Linux. Now there's a recency element to this, right? So the new IP Command, which I really like. And this is one of those queries where I just want the result. I don't want 10 blue links. I want it to tell me exactly what that command is. Let's see how search GPT does. So here, I'm going to go back to the search link, and I'm simply going to type in how to get your IP address using the new IP Command in Linux. Let's hit enter, and let's see what it does. Now for this, it really has no reason to give me images, but yet it will no matter what. And so I probably would get the same result or similar result just using chat GPT. So I'm kind of trying to figure out what the distinction is between chat GPT and using search GPT. There doesn't really seem to be much other than kind of a different interface. So here it is. Open a terminal, type the IP Command.

Yeah, so basically it told me, and here's an example output. Now, here's the thing: I don't actually know if this is true, and I don't have Linux, so I'm not going to be able to test it. But actually, maybe that's the usefulness of clicking into one of these images, and the images don't really seem to be related to what I'm asking. If config is not what I am asking for. All right, so that's the answer here. And just like before, we have the sources. So, had a geek, Linux tips. Let's click into one, and we can see if that was the right one. So, ping had a geek. This was from November 15th, 2023. And IP address show. IP Adder show. So, I think this is the right command, and it did it properly. Now, let's try the same one in perplexity. All right, so here we go. IP addr show seems to be the correct answer. Although looking back to search GPT, it just said ipaddr and did not tell me to type show.

although in the actual article had a geek, it says all of these commands are equivalent. So yes, I think they are both right. So now back here, we have this. Here's an example output, and yeah, we have a bunch of related searches. It doesn't automatically show me images, which I think is good, and it references the sources that it got this information from. So I think both of those are really good and gave me the results right away without having to click through. Now let's test Google. How to get your IP address using the new IP Command in Linux. So I do have Search Labs turned on, which is essentially Google Search's version of adding AI into the Google search. So let's assume I did not have this top part, the actual AI element in Google search, and I just looked here. The first result would tell me to use this ifconfig, which is not the newest version, I don't believe, and then the IP addr, which is the newest version. So in this one, I probably would have had to click through to see which one is the

most up-to-date one versus the other two perplexity and search GPT, which basically just gave me the answer. So, in this one, I think the AI search is better. Both perplexity and search GPT gave me good answers. So, next, Johannes Copeland asked test coding searches. Please check how often hallucinations happened. So, I think we kind of did that with the IP address here, but I'll give it a little bit more of a difficult coding question. I think anything that's coding-related, any AI search is going to be better. I'm going to give it kind of an open-ended code question. So, I'm going to say in Python, My code can't seem to find the module even though I know it's there. How do I fix this? And I know chat GPT would be able to help me with this, so I assume search GPT is going to be great as well. So, interestingly, it still gives me links, still gives me images, but I don't really need the links. I need the answer, and that's what we're seeing here, and I

suspect, especially because it doesn't actually reference any of the links here. It didn't actually need those sources to generate this result, and I can probably just prove that. Here's Chat GPT, and I'm going to ask the same question, and I bet it's going to give me a similar answer. Okay, so interestingly, it gave me a slightly different answer, but it is more or less kind of the same. Yeah, so it's basically just a Chat GPT answer. It's not really a search. Let's try perplexity now. So in Python, my code can't seem to find a module, even though I know it's there. How do I fix this? And the nice thing is I can ask questions rather than trying to formulate the right query to figure out the answer to the question, if that makes sense. And I'll show you what that means in a second when I use Google. So here we go. pip show, pip install, check the Python environment, check the Python path. Yeah, so this is all right. It looks good. Again, probably didn't actually need any web.

search for this, and now I'm literally going to copy-paste it into Google, but I really think that I need to restructure it in query form. So, rather than asking a question, which it'll probably work, but my bias is I need to type something like module can't be found or something else where it's actually trying to find a piece of text on a website which will give me the answer. But let's see, and so let's look at generative AI searches result right here. So, here's the reasons it might not be finding it. Here's some things to try, and I would say this is a much worse answer because it doesn't actually give me the code to test, but it links off to places that might have the code. And then here, number one, Stack Overflow, which is kind of the old way I would have found a solution to any of the code issues that I have. So, defin definitely Google lost on this one in my opinion, even including the generative AI search feature. Now I'm going to test

Something for recency. Just this morning, Unry dropped a new video about their robot, which shows some cool stuff. And I'm just going to try to find it with Search GPT first. So, show me the newest video of Unit's robot from this morning. And this is Search GPT. Let's see what happens. Okay, so Unitri unveils new G1 humanoid robot. So, that is the number one referenced link on YouTube. Here is the Unry goto new upgrade. I don't think this is right. I mean, I know that's not the robot video I'm talking about. None of these look right, actually. But let's see what happens. We can play it directly in here. So, this video was actually published two weeks ago, so that's not right. Now, let's click the top link here. And this video was published three months ago, so it was actually not able to immediately get the most recent video from this morning. Now, let's try perplexity. So, the answer, the newest video of Unit's robot from this morning.

is titled New Upgrade of Mry G1 Humanoid Robot: Leap into the Future and was published on August 19th. That is correct. Now show me the actual video. Let's see. So no, this isn't the actual video. That is a review of the video. So I'd say this wasn't really able to find it either. And now let's try Google. And there it is from 11 hours ago. Unry G1, the first result on Google. That is the video I was looking for. It is from the official Unry YouTube channel and it was from 10 hours ago. And boy, look how cool that is. But that aside, I think Google actually won this one. So recency, Google really has an advantage, or at least from that experiment. Okay, next sponsorship. Guru said, Test this out for a business use case. I am running an event in Melbourne for 1,500 delegates. Which venues have the capacity for 1,500 Pax? So I'm going to search for this now. If I had to guess, I think the AI search is going to do

better here because I'm looking for a very specific answer that requires cross-referencing multiple venues instead of just giving me a list of venues, but let's see. So search GPT first. All right, so top Melbourne venues for 1500 delegates. Okay, so this is pretty good, but it is essentially a list of 10 Blue Links. But I would say this still works, even though some of these say 1,400, 1,000, so maybe not the best, but it's still okay. Let's try perplexity now, same thing. All right, and yeah, so it gave me three answers, so Crown Melbourne, Marvel Stadium, and the timber yard, and all three of these seem to have at least 1,500 guests available. I'd say this is better than search GPT's answer. Now let's see Google. All right, and this one is not good at all. So not only did it not give me a generative AI answer, it gave me 10 Blue Links only, and this is just not what I'm looking for. So venue now I have

to click through. I have a website that I'm going to have to scroll and scan. It's just not what I'm looking for, so definitely Google lost this one, and I'd say perplexity won. Okay, next. Fred McCow says, Who are the main presenters at the upcoming Dreamforce conference, and why were they selected? So, not only kind of a recency but also the reasoning behind it, which again would take kind of putting together multiple sources to get the answer. Let's see. Search GPT first. Mark Benioff, Matthew McConaughey, Jane Goodall, Rainn Wilson, Sam Altman, and so on. So, this is a good list, but not necessarily why they were selected. The presenters were selected due to their significant contributions and expertise in their respective fields. So, a very generic answer. Let's make sure that these answers are correct. Let's actually just cross-reference it against perplexity. I hope perplexity gives me a better answer. It actually gave me a very different answer. Okay, so it only gave me four presenters, and it gave me the same

kind of overall summary of why they were selected. So let's click through, let's verify who's speaking, agenda, and speakers. So already, I just by scanning, I can't really find who the speaker is from this website. Let's try another one. So in this example, if I just want to find the website and then click through to it, I'm using Google. So there it is, first result. And so here are some of the results, more speakers. I don't think the AI search got this right. Oh, here we go. So Mark Benioff. Let's see who the list was again. Mark Benioff, Matthew McConaughey, Jane Goodall, Rainn Wilson. Let's see if Jane Goodall is there. Rainn Wilson is not. Let's see if Sam Altman. Sam Altman is not on the list. Yeah, so definitely Search GPT had some hallucination here. And let's see. So David Kirk is here. Raj is there. Matthew McConaughey is there. And Bob Sternfels is there as well. So it looks like Search GPT hallucinated, but

perplexity did not. I asked for the main presenters. I guess they selected the main presenters. I would have liked to see the CEO of Salesforce, Mark Benioff, be on the list here, but it wasn't, and didn't give me a good answer for why they were chosen. I was looking for more specifics to each person. Let's try Google now, so same question, and yeah, 10 Blue Links, not super helpful. So, I'd say perplexity one, but they all kind of didn't give me great responses. Perplexity definitely was the best 'cause it didn't hallucinate. All right, another one from Fred. What are the top three movie theaters in my neighborhood and why? So, not only local search, which we'll see if Search GPT and perplexity is able to do that. I assume they are, but also giving me the reasoning why they're so good. So, let's see. So, first, Search GPT. Let's go. Okay, so I realize I don't want to actually show the results here because I don't want to dox my location.

so you're just going to have to take my word for it. Search GPT gave me really, really good results. Not only listed the theaters that are local to me, but also why they're good, and it's accurate. Very, very nice. Same thing with perplexity. Okay, interesting. It actually did not give me a good result at all. So the website sources are all thinking that I'm still living in San Francisco, which I'm not. The answer is assuming that I'm in Hawaii 'cause I took a trip there, which I'm not. And yeah, this is a horrible response. So, complete failure. Now let's try Google, and of course, 10 Blue Links, which is just so archaic, it seems at this point. I'm going to click through, and here are just theaters in Los Angeles that it's showing. The Chinese Theater, very famous theater. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. This is a really bad result as well. By far, Search GPT absolutely crushed this one. I would say it's not even close. The other two, perplexity and Google search, gave horrible results.

whereas search GPT nailed it, so a lot of you asked about censorship, bias, politics, and I think this is all in reference to Google search essentially not showing anything about the Trump assassination attempt. So let's give it a try. Let's see what happens. So I'm simply going to type into search GPT, Trump assassination attempt. Let's see what it gives me. Okay, so on the left, we have of course some references, Wikipedia, MSN, and these look fine. FBI fires back at claims attempted assassination on Wikipedia, new footage. Great, and let's read about it. So the assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump occurred on July 13th. Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at Trump with an AR-15, and recent investigations have revealed several key details, communication failures, security lapses. I think this is actually a very fine result, and it's giving it to me. It's not saying anything else. Let's look at some of the pictures. Yeah, I mean obviously the most famous picture at the top. Yeah, this is definitely a

very good response. Let's see what perplexity does. Here are sources at the top: New York Times, Wikipedia, ABC News, and more. Answer July 13th, perpetrator, target, and information. I'd say this is a good response as well. Now Google, and again we get news this time, so news at the top. So these are all recent stories: The Guardian, Fox, BBC, Washington Post, and then the top organic result that is non-news is about Google's failing with the actual search results of this search query. So here we go: fbi.gov, CNN, BBC, New York Times. This is okay. I would say that the AI search one on this one, both Search GPT and Perplexity, just gave me better, easier-to-read answers where I'm not just having to click through and then read through articles. It just gave me responses. All right, next pseudonym asks what an effective collagen and creatine powder load by age. So I think this is again one of those examples that the AI search is going to win because it's going to give me the exact answer.

hopefully, it doesn't hallucinate versus Google, which will give me 10 Blue Links, and here we go. So timing, creatine dosage, timing benefits, considerations, age-specific. It's okay. I really specified by age, so I was expecting like a chart or some kind of breakdown by age, but it's not really giving me that. So that's an okay response. I actually don't know if this is hallucinating or not because I just don't know about this subject, and I don't really want to do a whole research project on that. But let's try perplexity now. Okay, general guidelines, age-specific recommendations. Okay, kind of the same answer, maybe slightly better. I think it's pretty much the same. Now let's try Google. All right, yeah, this is not good. Is creatine safe for older adults? 10 Blue Links, none of which really are answering what I am asking. So Google failed in this one. So here's a couple examples that I've been playing around with that I just know are better with Google. If you're searching for a

specific website or you know what you're looking for, and you know it's on a website, but you just don't remember what website it's at. Google's the way to go. You're not going to find it as easily with Search GPT or Perplexity because they're going to give you answers rather than giving you a link to that place. That's an obvious one. Now, how about flights? I think flights would be interesting. Let's test it out. So here, Search GPT, I'm flying to Europe this December 12th through 20th. Um, I'm just making this up. I have two adults, two children. I want to fly business class. What options do I have? Okay, so it did give me a list of airlines, but it does not give me flight information until Search GPT and Chat GPT can integrate more deeply with the airlines companies or like the flight search websites. It's not going to have nearly as good results as Google, which does it natively. Let's try it with Perplexity now. Okay, so here

it's saying, Here's what to consider if you're doing that, and yeah, this is not good. Maybe I'm going to ask a follow-up question, so show me actual flights that meet my criteria. I don't think it's going to be able to. Nope, here are steps to find the flights. So, it's telling me, Go use Kayak. So, yeah, I think Google's just going to win this one. So, I'm going to copy-paste, although again for Google, I would definitely form the query differently and say like flights December 12th to 20th to Europe, but let's give it a try anyways. Okay, interesting. So, it actually gave me 10 Blue Links. So, now let me show you what I would do differently. So, flights to Europe December 12th to 20th, and now there we go. This is what I'm looking for, a list of specific flights with prices. So, just in case, let's go back to search GPT and try that one more time. Okay, so it did a little bit better this time, but

still not quite as good. Yeah, it kind of gave me a combination of airlines and website search tools. Perplexity one more time. So again, it's just pointing me to flight search tools, whereas Google has its own website for flights and hotels and everything. So Google definitely wins there. All right, so last, I want to search for images. So I have this idea for an image that I want. I don't know where it is, but I want to find it. So I'm simply going to type robots. I want an image of a robot, and yeah, so I get images of robots here. I get more here, and here's some information about different robots with images. So this is a pretty good result, but it only gives me a very limited set of images, and the filtering capabilities are essentially non-existent here. Let's try perplexity now. I'm just going to type robots. Now here's the thing. It doesn't know if I'm looking for information about robots, a film about robots, obviously the Wikipedia page, different types of robots. So really not good. Uh, I can generate

images which is nice now. Google. I know they have great image search, so it's to do really well. So let's type robots, hit enter, and I can immediately click over to the images tab, and I get so many pictures of robots. And not only that, I can filter by specific types, so drawing of robots, sketches of robots, realistic robots. Definitely Google won this one. Any kind of image search, Google's going to win. All right, so enough of the testing. Let me break down my thoughts on this. AI search is certainly the future, but they still have a ways to go. If you know exactly what you're looking for and you're not necessarily looking for an answer to something, Google search is going to be the best. Let's say you want a website or you want to find that YouTube video that you watched and you just can't remember where it was. Google's going to be the best. And one thing I didn't touch on this whole video, Google search speed is much, much faster than any AI search could ever hope to be today. But that doesn't mean it's not

going to change in the future. Now, if you're looking for an answer to something and you don't care where you get it from, any of the AI search tools are going to be better: Search GPT and Perplexity, those are going to be better. So, I think the whole concept of AI search is really an answer engine versus a search engine. It's a really good way to think about it. Now, as Google adds more of the generative AI capabilities into its search result, it's going to be even better. But here's the thing: Google search is pretty cluttered and it has a bunch of ads. And maybe it's only a matter of time before Search GPT and Perplexity have more ads. But for now, I find the interface of Perplexity to be by far the best. It has the most functionality. Search GPT is nice, it's clean, it's useful, it won some of those tests. So, I really think it depends on what you're searching for and what your needs are in that search to determine

whether you want to use AI search or Google Search. Now talking about search GPT versus perplexity. Perplexity is better just for now. It has a lot more functionality. Now if I had a gun to my head and you said choose now you only get one search engine for the rest of your life based on its functionality today. That would be a really hard decision. I would definitely be choosing between perplexity and Google search and I think I'd probably have to go with perplexity just because eight nine out of 10 times I can use perplexity and get exactly what I want. But those last like one or two I'd have to go to Google Search. But if I could only use one I think I'd go with perplexity. If you enjoyed this video please consider giving a like and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one.

MAJOR Threat To Google Search (SearchGPT vs. Perplexity vs. Google Search)

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Open Source, Generative Art, AI Art, Futurism, ChatGPT, Large Language Models (LLM), Machine Learning, Technology, Coding, Tutorials, AI News, and more

** Exclusive Pinecone Partner **

Matthew Berman

The author is comparing Search GPT and Perplexity, both by OpenAI, against Google Search to determine their effectiveness.

Search GPT provides AI-generated results with images and citations, while Perplexity offers a more feature-rich interface and additional functionalities.

Google Search, on the other hand, delivers built-in results and graphics, making it easier to find specific information.

Comparing Search GPT and Perplexity for IP Command Queries

Search GPT and Perplexity both provide the IP command for getting an IP address in Linux, with Search GPT offering a more direct answer.

Google Search, even with AI integration, requires clicking through for the most up-to-date information.

Overall, Search GPT and Perplexity excel in delivering quick and accurate answers without unnecessary links or images.

Comparing AI Search Results for Code Issues and Recent Videos

AI tools like Chat GPT and Perplexity provide similar answers for code-related questions, making them less reliant on web searches.

Google, on the other hand, offers a less effective solution, lacking direct code examples.

When searching for recent videos, both AI tools struggle to provide the most up-to-date content, with Google failing to deliver the desired result.

Comparing AI Search and Google for Event Planning

The Unry G1 Humanoid Robot video was found on Google, showcasing its recency advantage.

For the event in Melbourne with 1,500 delegates, Perplexity provided the best answer with three venues, while Google offered a list of blue links.

In searching for presenters at the Dreamforce conference, Search GPT gave a list but lacked detailed reasoning, while Perplexity provided a different and less comprehensive answer.

Comparing AI Search Results for Speaker Selection and Local Movie Theaters

The speaker selection from the AI search results was inconsistent, with Search GPT hallucinating some names while Perplexity provided a more accurate list.

Search GPT excelled in providing local movie theater recommendations, offering accurate results and reasoning for their selection.

In contrast, Perplexity and Google search struggled to provide relevant local results, with Google offering outdated and irrelevant information.

Comparing AI Search and Google for Information

AI search tools like Search GPT and Perplexity provided clear and concise answers about the Trump assassination attempt, while Google offered a mix of news and organic results.

The AI searches also gave better age-specific recommendations for collagen and creatine powder, whereas Google struggled to provide a direct answer.

Overall, the AI search tools seemed to deliver more effective and easy-to-read responses compared to Google.

Comparing Search Methods for Flights and Images

Google is the best option for finding specific websites and flight information, as it provides direct links and a comprehensive list of flights with prices.

Search GPT and Perplexity struggle to offer detailed flight options, often directing users to external search tools instead.

When searching for images, Google provides a limited set with some information, while Perplexity fails to narrow down the search effectively.

Google's image search is superior, offering a wide range of pictures and specific filters for types of robots.

AI search tools like Search GPT and Perplexity are better for finding answers, while Google excels at locating websites and videos.

Perplexity currently offers the most functionality, making it a strong contender against Google Search.