Perplexity−25 Negative

Operator Insights

What are business and product leaders learning from rolling Perplexity out across their teams?

7 accounts: 2 failures, incidents or rollbacks, 2 run it beside another tool, 1 evaluated it and 2 adopted it

Failures, incidents and rollbacks2

Gabriel CorralEngineer, with three Cloudflare colleaguesCloudflare
Platform operator. Customer sites that blocked PerplexityBot. Report published August 4, 2025.
The Cloudflare Blog, published Aug 4, 2025Read the write-up (opens The Cloudflare Blog in a new tab)
Observation
Cloudflare caught Perplexity using undeclared crawlers on sites that had blocked it, and de-listed it as a verified bot.
Takeaway
If your company publishes content, check whether Perplexity can reach pages you block, and ask legal whether that matters before you buy seats.
What happened
After complaints from customers who had disallowed Perplexity in robots.txt and blocked its declared crawlers with firewall rules, Cloudflare's tests showed Perplexity reaching those sites through undeclared crawlers with rotating IP addresses and a generic browser user agent. After the incident, on August 4, 2025, Cloudflare de-listed Perplexity as a verified bot and added managed rules that block the stealth crawling for every customer.
“We received complaints from customers who had both disallowed Perplexity crawling activity in their robots.txt files and also created WAF rules to specifically block both of Perplexity’s declared crawlers: PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User.”
Cloudflare
- Public engineering write-up
- Tests run by Cloudflare
Deployment details
Platform operator. Customer sites that blocked PerplexityBot. Report published August 4, 2025.
- Public engineering write-up
- Tests run by Cloudflare
Team
Cloudflare's bot management engineers
Workload
Detecting crawler traffic against robots.txt rules
Product version
Perplexity's crawlers

BraveAug 20, 2025Brave blogBrave showed a web page could make Perplexity's Comet hand over a user's email and login code, and found the fix incomplete.
Artem ChaikinSecurity researcher, with Shivan Kaul SahibBrave
Security test. Perplexity Comet's page summarizer. Disclosed August 20, 2025.
Brave blog, published Aug 20, 2025Read the write-up (opens Brave blog in a new tab)
Observation
Brave showed a web page could make Perplexity's Comet hand over a user's email and login code, and found the fix incomplete.
Takeaway
Keep agentic browsing off logged-in work accounts until your security team has tested it against planted pages.
What happened
Brave's researchers reported on July 25, 2025 that hidden instructions in a web page could make Comet's summarizer leak the user's email address and a one-time login code. Perplexity acknowledged it on July 27 and shipped a fix, but after the August 20 disclosure Brave found the attack class was still not fully mitigated and reported it again. Brave builds a competing browser.
“Update: on further testing after this blog post was released, we learned that Perplexity still hasn’t fully mitigated the kind of attack described here. We’ve re-reported this to them.”
Brave
Public engineering write-up (by a competing browser maker)
Reproduced by the researchers
Deployment details
Security test. Perplexity Comet's page summarizer. Disclosed August 20, 2025.
Public engineering write-up (by a competing browser maker)
Reproduced by the researchers
Team
Brave security and privacy team
Duration
July 25 to August 2025
Workload
Summarizing web pages while logged in
Product version
Perplexity Comet

Run it beside another tool2

Dave HamiltonCo-hostBusiness Brain
Individual. A small-business podcast host's own research, described January 2, 2026.
Its own announcement, published Jan 2, 2026Listen to the episode (opens the announcement in a new tab)
Observation
A podcast host who still pays for ChatGPT now defaults to Perplexity, because it hallucinates less for him.
Takeaway
Run both on your own research questions for a month; Hamilton's use moved to Perplexity on accuracy.
What happened
Hamilton tested the same question in ChatGPT and free Perplexity in March 2025 and both were right, with Perplexity giving the more direct answer. By January 2026 he kept paying for ChatGPT but defaulted to Perplexity more and more for research and learning how to do things, finding it far less likely to hallucinate for him.
“Right. But I find that it is for learning how to do things, it is far less likely to hallucinate for me than ChatGPT is.”
Dave Hamilton, at 2:39 in the recording
- Podcast episode (Business Brain)
- Personal use over ten months
Deployment details
Individual. A small-business podcast host's own research, described January 2, 2026.
- Podcast episode (Business Brain)
- Personal use over ten months
Team
One user
Duration
March 2025 to January 2026
Workload
Everyday research and how-to questions
Product version
Perplexity free, then paid; ChatGPT paid

TinyJul 3, 2025Lenny's PodcastTiny's co-founder has an agent research every upcoming contact in Perplexity before his meetings.
Andrew WilkinsonCo-founderTiny
Individual. A founder's meeting preparation, described July 3, 2025.
Lenny's Podcast, published Jul 3, 2025Listen to the episode (opens Lenny's Podcast in a new tab)
Observation
Tiny's co-founder has an agent research every upcoming contact in Perplexity before his meetings.
Takeaway
Use Perplexity behind an automated research step, such as meeting briefs, as well as in a chat window.
What happened
Wilkinson runs an agent that checks his calendar, does a deep dive on each person he is about to meet in Perplexity, pulls the meeting's context from his email and texts him a brief. He uses ChatGPT beside it for everything else.
“It goes on to Perplexity and it does a deep dive on the person and it sends me, it goes into my email and it gets the context of the meeting.”
Andrew Wilkinson, at 53:39
Podcast episode (Lenny's Podcast)
Personal use
Deployment details
Individual. A founder's meeting preparation, described July 3, 2025.
Podcast episode (Lenny's Podcast)
Personal use
Team
One founder
Workload
Pre-meeting research on contacts
Product version
Perplexity, called by an agent

Evaluated it1

Ethan SmithCEOGraphite
Professional team. Search marketing agency studying AI answer citations, described September 14, 2025.
Lenny's Podcast, published Sep 14, 2025Listen to the episode (opens Lenny's Podcast in a new tab)
Observation
Graphite's study of thousands of questions found Perplexity's citations overlap Google's about twice as much as ChatGPT's.
Takeaway
Measure your visibility in Perplexity and ChatGPT separately, with repeated prompts, since they cite different pages.
What happened
Graphite tested thousands of questions and found the citation overlap with Google Search results around 35% for ChatGPT and around 70% for Perplexity. Smith concludes the assistants run similar algorithms with very different citations, so a company has to ask each question several times, with variations, to know how often it appears.
“We're seeing that ChatGPT citations and Google Search results are actually not that similar. Perplexity is interestingly more similar to Google than ChatGPT. We did a study looking at thousands of questions and saw the citation overlap with Google Search results was around 35% for ChatGPT and Google, so not that much.”
Ethan Smith, at 36:41
- Podcast episode (Lenny's Podcast)
- Study described by the CEO
Deployment details
Professional team. Search marketing agency studying AI answer citations, described September 14, 2025.
- Podcast episode (Lenny's Podcast)
- Study described by the CEO
Team
Graphite's research team
Workload
Citation tracking across AI assistants
Product version
Perplexity and ChatGPT
Measurement
Citation overlap with Google (about 70% for Perplexity, 35% for ChatGPT)

Adopted it2

Kogod School of Business, American UniversityMar 19, 2025Kogod School of Business, American UniversityAmerican University's Kogod School of Business gave every student, staff member, and faculty member Enterprise Pro.
David MarchickDeanKogod School of Business, American University
Organization-wide. Every student, staff member, and faculty member. Business school.
Its own announcement, published Mar 19, 2025Read the write-up (opens the announcement in a new tab)
Observation
American University's Kogod School of Business gave every student, staff member, and faculty member Enterprise Pro.
Takeaway
Give access to everyone at once when the curriculum and training are already in place, so the license lands on people who know what to use it for.
What happened
Kogod partnered with Perplexity to give its whole community Enterprise Pro, which the school says makes it one of the first business schools in the world to do so. The dean said students can build custom tutors for coursework, faculty can build shared research knowledge bases, and staff can bring AI into daily work. The license builds on a year in which Kogod added AI to more than 40 courses, planned AI badges and certificates, and trained faculty on AI tools.
“Through this partnership, every student, staff member, and faculty member at Kogod will have access to Perplexity Enterprise Pro.”
Kogod School of Business
Public organization write-up
Rollout and scope stated
Deployment details
Organization-wide. Every student, staff member, and faculty member. Business school.
Public organization write-up
Rollout and scope stated
Team
All Kogod students, staff, and faculty
Duration
Announced March 2025
Workload
Coursework tutors, research knowledge bases, and staff work
Product version
Enterprise Pro
Texas A&M UniversitySep 28, 2026Texas A&M University ITAt Texas A&M, central IT bought Enterprise Pro at a campus price and published the data rules with it.
Texas A&M Technology ServicesCentral IT organizationTexas A&M University
Organization-wide. Students, faculty, and staff, licensed until June 30, 2027.
Texas A&M University IT, published Sep 28, 2026Read the write-up (opens Texas A&M University IT in a new tab)
Observation
At Texas A&M, central IT bought Enterprise Pro at a campus price and published the data rules with it.
Takeaway
Negotiate the institution-wide price and license term. Publish allowed data classes before issuing licenses.
What happened
Texas A&M Technology Services runs a campus licence that offers Enterprise Pro to active students, faculty, staff, and eligible Texas A&M System members at US$9 a month, charged as US$108 a year. It calls that price substantially lower than the publicly advertised commercial one. People sign in with their campus account. Perplexity is approved for public, university-internal, and FERPA data, HIPAA data needs approval, and all other confidential data is prohibited. A department can ask to move a departing employee's license to another active employee for the rest of the term. Texas A&M reviewed Comet as part of its service evaluation and security review.
Public organization write-up
Price, term, and data rules stated
Deployment details
Organization-wide. Students, faculty, and staff, licensed until June 30, 2027.
Public organization write-up
Price, term, and data rules stated
Team
Active students, faculty, staff, and eligible Texas A&M System members
Duration
License term through June 30, 2027
Workload
Cited research, document summaries, drafts, file analysis, and search across connected repositories
Product version
Enterprise Pro, with OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, Slack, and Wiley connectors

Failures, incidents and rollbacks2

Cloudflare caught Perplexity using undeclared crawlers on sites that had blocked it, and de-listed it as a verified bot.

Brave showed a web page could make Perplexity's Comet hand over a user's email and login code, and found the fix incomplete.

Run it beside another tool2

A podcast host who still pays for ChatGPT now defaults to Perplexity, because it hallucinates less for him.

Tiny's co-founder has an agent research every upcoming contact in Perplexity before his meetings.

Evaluated it1

Graphite's study of thousands of questions found Perplexity's citations overlap Google's about twice as much as ChatGPT's.

Adopted it2

American University's Kogod School of Business gave every student, staff member, and faculty member Enterprise Pro.

At Texas A&M, central IT bought Enterprise Pro at a campus price and published the data rules with it.