Hi you,

This week, I’m writing about a virtual move. I have a new web browser, and started using a search engine that’s literally changing how I see the world. But first, a few things from the feeds…

• Prentice Penny, showrunner for Issa Rae’s Insecure HBO series, has directed his first documentary, Black Twitter: A People’s History. It’s based on Jason Parham’s 2021 Wired cover story but has been meaningfully updated for the post-Elon Musk era of the social network, and visually reimagined for the screen. I’m in all three episodes, which drop on Thursday, May 9, on Hulu, and at 8 p.m. ET that day, you can join many of us live-tweeting the first episode using the hashtag #BlackTwitterHulu.
• Amid the wave of protests, encampments, counter-protests, and violent assaults, it’s been difficult to get a clear picture of what’s happening on U.S. college campuses. I’ve been trying to keep up by tuning in to student journalists, who don’t have the same incentives as television pundits to highlight the most dramatic incidents and escalate tensions. They are also better sourced and positioned than almost all national news outlets, even those with on-the-ground reporting resources. This PBS NewsHour interview with three student journalists is worth a watch. I also recommend the UCLA Daily Bruin’s central page and its coverage of the April 30 violent assault on protestors. Several student papers across the country have collaborated to document campus actions and reactions.
• In the spirit of shifting the narrative away from incitement and toward enlightenment, I highly recommend this TED conversation between Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. I first met Maoz in October after my conversation with Noam Shuster-Eliassi. Sarah and Inon have both lost family members to violence from the other side. They are both deeply angry about that loss, and they both have committed to channeling that anger toward peace.
• Finally, some inspiring and incredible news from the more-than-human world: For the first time, researchers have witnessed an orangutan applying plant medicine to itself. It’s beautiful and humbling. I can’t wait to read about animals micro-dosing and offering ayahuasca retreat packages on Instagram.

But the revolution is still nascent. Perplexity was founded less than two years ago, in August ’22, by former machine learning research scientists at OpenAI and Meta, and has emerged as one of the most groundbreaking products in the recent A.I. wave. It’s not the only A.I.-powered search product out there—several others have popped up that emphasize privacy, customization, academic focus, and more. But Perplexity feels like the most broadly useful of the bunch. Its ascent was coronated by a $1 billion valuation, based on $165 million in funding from prominent VC firms including New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital, corporate investors like Nvidia and Databricks, and mega-rich individuals including Jeff Bezos, Susan Wojcicki, the former C.E.O. of YouTube, and Dylan Field, the C.E.O. of Figma.

I first learned about Perplexity from a YouTube video, which is a bit ironic. Basically, Google can only blame itself for introducing me to a service that’s reduced my Googling by at least 90 percent. But Alphabet—which generated over $300 billion in its most recent fiscal year, with 77 percent of that revenue derived from advertising owing to its monopoly position in web search—is not sitting idly by, and has started scrambling to keep the feisty upstarts at bay. The company has steadily improved its Gemini model, and just integrated the chatbot directly into Chrome’s address bar. But when it comes to search, the company is treading lightly, offering access to “Search Generative Experience” through Labs. Whereas Perplexity offers a few hundred words of explanation and line-by-line citations, Google’s S.G.E. is more like a supersized snippet of information, inserted above standard search results. That’s probably because Google has a lot more to lose if its core search product starts spewing falsehoods, or undermining its economic relationship with publishers too quickly—or even cannibalizing its ultra-high-margin advertising business.

Here are a few illustrative highlights from my recent queries. When I heard someone on a podcast mention that airline hijackings occurred once every five days in the 1970s, Perplexity got back to me with a short written report, citing Smithsonian Magazine, CNN, Wikipedia, and multiple FBI investigation pages. It was a tidy, context-rich explanation. When I needed tech support to resolve a hardware issue, Perplexity offered me a running start by offering results from across product forums, Subreddits, and Quora. Then there was this quality response to my question about how often one should water snake plants, and this threaded series of queries about the cause of the Maui wildfires (spoiler alert: it wasn’t D.E.I.). While traditional search engines provide search results, Perplexity and its ilk provide answers. I still head to Google when I just need some small snippet of data—a local weather forecast or the lyrics to a song—but the cases are now few and far between.

I recently discussed the implications of Perplexity with hashtag inventor, open-source advocate, and investor Chris Messina, along with investor Brian McCullough, on an episode of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast. Brian made the provocative point that search engines, at least as we’ve known them, have suddenly become an antiquated technology, precisely because of A.I. search and its ability to synthesize results. I think he’s right. Once upon a time, search engines narrowed the information gap by rounding up websites that were relevant to our query—but that only brings us halfway to our true goal, which is information. A.I. search cuts to the chase. Now, the bigger question is how this new form of knowledge acquisition will transform the ways we use the internet, and the inevitable, material impact on businesses, like Google, that depend on its current structure for their bottom line.

Meanwhile, there’s another elephant in the room. As the Times’ Kevin Roose asked when he reviewed Perplexity, “If A.I. search engines can reliably summarize what’s happening in Gaza, or tell users which toaster to buy, why would anyone visit a publisher’s website ever again?” Yes, there is a long-term, justified fear that these products, which generate seemingly quality answers by distilling published information, will reduce traffic—and even existentially threaten—news outlets and other online publishers. That anxiety feels justified, if a little overblown. Even with Perplexity, I still end up on commerce sites to complete transactions, and I still visit publications like the Times to read comprehensive reporting and to learn about events that weren’t already on my radar. I don’t think Perplexity, at least in its current form, undermines these dynamics, but if it gains significant market share or inspires the entire field to adopt its approach, it very well could.

However, as we experience ever-more-efficient ways to access information, I believe we’ll realize that efficiency isn’t always the best element to optimize for. Today, I visited a record store, with actual records, because the owner created a good vibe. In the process, I learned how to clean my own records and got referrals to several other shops in the area. Last week, I went to a clothing store, tried on several outfits, and got advice from the knowledgeable manager and my wife on what shorts look best on me. Most weeks I go to the farmers market, where I reconnect with a few friends and neighbors and pick up the latest local news and gossip. None of these is the most efficient way to get music, clothing, food, a list of local record stores, or local news. But they were all far more interesting than typing into, and reading from, a screen. They kept me connected with other humans and my surroundings.

Big picture, I see it like this. There will always be some sort of digital mediator between us and the information we seek out online. But this new wave of A.I. search products has streamlined that process with such velocity that the incumbents have been caught flat-footed. Maybe Google, with its army of engineers and incredibly deep pockets, will figure out how to maneuver into pole position. Until then, however, the race is on—and consumers like you and I stand to benefit from the inevitable technological leaps that will emerge from the competition to satisfy our information needs. We will also have to decide what we want, other than information, out of the process: social interaction, unique experiences, trusted relationships, economic incentives, or something else. Right now, just know that you should only water snake plants once the soil is bone dry.