Perplexity’s AI voice assistant is now available on iOS

Perplexity’s iOS App just got an update enabling support for the company’s conversational AI voice assistant. Now Apple users can activate the assistant in the app and ask it to perform tasks like writing emails, setting reminders, and making dinner reservations. You can even navigate away from the app and continue to speak to Perplexity, although it doesn’t yet support screen sharing like it does on Android. Meanwhile, some of the conversational AI stuff Apple has promised for the Apple Intelligence-powered Siri could still be more than a year away. And unlike Apple Intelligence, Perplexity’s assistant can do these things on older devices, like my iPhone 13 mini. [Media: https://twitter.com/perplexity_ai/status/1915064472391336071] When the Android version launched in January, Perplexity’s spokesperson told The Verge that it would come to iPhones and iPads once “Apple gives us the right permissions,” and apparently that has been worked out. I downloaded Perplexity for the first time on my iPhone today and asked it to set a reminder for me to start cooking at 7PM. I was greeted with a pop-up asking me to give it permission to see my reminders. I accepted, and it added the reminder as I expected. I tried crafting a text message and, as expected, Perplexity asked for access to my contacts. I declined, but I appreciated that the assistant’s next step was to prompt me to just say the intended phone number instead of failing completely. I also tried booking a table at a restaurant, as shown in the video demo posted by Peplexity, and its mobile assistant opened Open Table, then entered the dates and times I said out loud. The actions aren’t end-to-end, though; you’ll still need to complete the process yourself in the window. Perplexity can also open my Uber app and set me up with a ride. Perplexity’s voice assistant has other limitations on iOS. You can’t ask it to look at your camera and “see” what you see for context, as other AI assistants can, like ChatGPT and Grok. But you can still use the standard text-based chatbot to ask questions about a picture. And you can’t ask it to set your iPhone’s scheduled alarms for you — you’ll still need Siri for that.