Choosing the Right AI Model in Perplexity

Perplexity AI offers multiple AI models to power its answers, and picking the right one can elevate your results. On the free plan, Perplexity automatically uses a default model optimized for quick, accurate answers (“Best” mode) and handles model choice for you. Free users get a limited number of Pro Searches (with advanced models) per day, but cannot manually select specific models. Upgrading to Perplexity Pro unlocks advanced model selection. Pro users can choose from cutting-edge models like GPT-4.1, o3, Claude 4.0 (Sonnet), Google Gemini 2.5, and more via a dropdown at the top of the chat interface. Each model has its strengths – for example, GPT-4 excels at complex reasoning and coding tasks, while Claude might be faster for conversational answers. If you’re unsure which model fits your query, Perplexity lets you experiment: you can run the same question with different models to compare outputs. Ultimately, the best approach is to try out multiple models and see which yields the results you prefer. The “Best” mode is great for simplicity, but power users may switch models based on the task (e.g., using GPT-4 for in-depth research or o4-mini for step-by-step reasoning). Model selection is a Pro perk designed to give you more control, so you can tailor the AI’s performance to each question.

Ready to harness GPT-4 and other advanced models? Unlock Perplexity Pro to choose your ideal model and take your AI-assisted research to the next level.