In one sentence
Perplexity AI is an AI search engine provided by the U.S. company Perplexity. Its defining characteristic is that it always shows source URLs, which makes direct traffic to cited sources highly likely.
What does it look like in practice?
When you ask Perplexity a question, source URLs appear at the end of the answer (example):
[Answer body...]
Sources:
[1] https://example-research.com/...
[2] https://example-news.co.jp/...
[3] https://geo-meters.com/...
A list of clickable URLs that grounded the answer is displayed. Users can directly visit any source that interests them.