Where do you go for answers to very specific questions?

Questions like…

“Will brewing my specialty coffee with mineral water rather than with tap water bring out the delicate flavors better?”

(I asked this question today.)

Or: “How do the British people feel about Brexit these days? What’s the latest polling?”

(I asked that question yesterday.)

Or: “What’s a more effective exercise for strengthening my hamstrings—lying leg curls or standing leg curls? What do my favorite fitness teachers like Dr Mike Israetel and Jeff Cavaliere think?”

(I asked that question last Wednesday.)

For these sorts of questions, I used to use Google.

I didn’t spell them out, of course. I might search something like…

“specialty coffee flavor tap vs mineral water”

Or “Brexit polling 2025”.

But these days, I use a new tool to get my answers faster and more accurately—and I can ask my questions using normal language. The way I’d speak.

This tool is Perplexity.

I have no affiliation with this tool. I’m not making any money in any way by recommending it to you.

It simply boosts my productivity and gets me answers faster. It makes my days easier.

Here’s a little note though:

Perplexity is an AI search engine.

I waited this long to mention “AI” because I know that some of you would have gone running for the hills with your fingers in your ears screaming “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” if I had opened with “try this new AI tool”.

I understand your concerns about AI.

Will AI know way too much about me? Where’s all that data going? And who owns the companies that make these tools, anyway?

All great questions. By all means, dig into them.

But don’t be a Luddite.

You and me are so incredibly lucky to have access to the beautiful web of knowledge that is the Internet. That vast treasure trove of information and inspiration.

Millions of people globally don’t have any access to the Internet at all. Actually, I underestimated that—2.6 billion people globally are entirely unconnected. (I just asked Perplexity.)

And don’t romanticize being unconnected. It’s great for us to disconnect from time to time, but it’s not great if you cannot access the Internet at all. It puts you at a huge disadvantage.

You and me, though? We have a huge advantage.

Not only can we access the entire Internet whenever we want…

We can now do so with the latest AI tools that can get us information from the furthest reaches of the Internet in the blink of an eye.

Use these tools. Cautiously, of course. Sensibly. But use them and be grateful. And try Perplexity specifically, if you haven’t yet. It’s awesome.

Meanwhile, I’ll be trying something else: I’ll brew my coffee with mineral water tomorrow morning. Let’s see whether it blows my mind as much as Perplexity did when I discovered it.