Perplexity launches AI voice assistant to rival Siri on iOS

Perplexity’s new Voice Assistant feature brings powerful AI capabilities to iOS users, offering a compelling alternative to Apple’s delayed Siri enhancements. This update significantly expands accessibility to conversational AI on Apple devices, notably including older iPhones and iPads that won’t support Apple Intelligence, while providing sophisticated integration with various apps and services.

The big picture: Perplexity has updated its iOS app with a new Voice Assistant feature that allows users to interact with AI through voice commands even when navigating away from the app.

• The assistant can perform complex tasks across multiple apps, including drafting emails, controlling smart home devices, and making reservations.
• This update arrives as Apple’s own conversational AI enhancements for Siri face delays, potentially not arriving for several more months.

Key capabilities: Voice Assistant can perform numerous functions directly through the Perplexity iOS app, given appropriate user permissions.

• The feature can send emails, control smart homes, provide Apple Maps directions, schedule calendar events, play media content, and make reservations.
• Users can add Voice Assistant shortcuts to their Lock Screen or assign it to an iPhone’s Action button for quick access.

Under the hood: Perplexity leverages multiple advanced large language models to power its voice assistant functionality.

• The app utilizes OpenAI’s GPT-4.1, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and xAi’s Grok-2.
• While the iOS version currently lacks the screen sharing capability found in the Android app, it still offers robust functionality across devices.

Availability: Perplexity syncs across devices and is available as a free download with optional in-app subscriptions from the App Store.