Perplexity sits between Google and a chat assistant. You ask in plain language, it searches the web in real time, and it writes you an answer with numbered citations showing exactly where each claim came from. The sources are the point: where a chatbot might confidently improvise (see hallucination), Perplexity is built to show its receipts.
People use it the way they used to use search: quick facts, comparisons, research, shopping decisions. It just skips the step where you open eight tabs and synthesise them yourself.
Why you keep hearing it
Because it became the flagship example of "answer engines" replacing classic search, and a favourite tool of researchers and journalists. In marketing conversations it comes up constantly as one of the places buyers now discover and compare brands (see GEO and AEO).
What it means for you
Two uses. As a research tool, it is excellent for quick sourced answers, and the citations make verification easy. As a marketer, it is one of the surfaces to check your own brand on: ask it about your category and read which sources it pulls from. Those sources are where your brand's AI-search reputation actually lives.