Perplexity launches its own freemium ‘deep research’ product

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1. Perplexity launches its own freemium ‘deep research’ product

Perplexity has launched Deep Research, a new feature in its AI platform, which provides in-depth answers with real citations for professional use cases. The feature, which is available on the web and will soon be added to its Mac, iOS, and Android apps, is designed to excel at expert-level tasks such as finance, marketing, and product research.

Perplexity Deep Research is available for free, with non-subscribers getting an unspecified-but-limited number of queries per day, while paying subscribers get unlimited queries. The feature also performs more quickly, completing most tasks in under three minutes compared to OpenAI's Deep Research. Perplexity's Deep Research is available for free, while OpenAI's Deep Research is available for a $200-per-month Pro subscription.

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2. EU abandons ePrivacy, AI liability reforms as bloc shifts focus to AI competitiveness

The European Commission has withdrawn a proposal to update the ePrivacy Directive, which aimed to make online tracking technologies more stringent and penalised like GDPR.

The ePrivacy Regulation was included in a list of legislative initiatives being withdrawn via its 2025 work program due to "no foreseeable agreement." The move was prompted by lobbying from tech giants and telcos. The ePrivacy Regulation could have made online privacy more convenient for European consumers.

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3. Musk will pull OpenAI bid if ChatGPT maker remains non-profit

Elon Musk's consortium will withdraw its $97.4-billion bid for OpenAI's non-profit arm if the company drops plans to become a for-profit entity. Musk has been trying to block the startup from becoming a for-profit firm, which OpenAI argues is crucial for securing more capital and competing in the AI race.

OpenAI's board plans to reject the bid, as its non-profit is not for sale and its mission is to ensure AI benefits humanity. The bid could complicate OpenAI's efforts to turn into a for-profit company.

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4. Sonar: A Blazing Fast Model Optimized for Perplexity Search

Perplexity Pro users can now try the latest version of Sonar, an in-house model optimized for answer quality and user experience. Sonar outperforms models like GPT-4o mini and Claude 3.5 Haiku, and matches or exceeds frontier models like GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet for user satisfaction.

It runs at a fast speed of 1200 tokens per second, enabling nearly instant answer generation.

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5. Meta’s next big bet may be humanoid robotics

Meta is forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to build robots that can assist with physical tasks, Bloomberg reported. The team will be responsible for developing humanoid robotics hardware, potentially including hardware that can perform household chores.

Meta’s new robotics group, which will be led by Marc Whitten, driverless car startup Cruise’s former CEO, will also create robotic software and AI, according to Bloomberg’s reporting.

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