While Perplexity AI offers many powerful features and has become a popular AI-powered search engine, there’s a side of it that users need to watch carefully—privacy. Like many modern AI tools, like ChatGPT, OpenAI, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and more, perplexity is hungry for data. And now, it’s taking steps that raise serious questions about user tracking, targeted ads, and online surveillance.
Let’s break it down.
1. Perplexity Wants Your Data
When you use Perplexity, every question you ask becomes a part of its system. The company collects web search history, IP addresses, device info, and location data. This isn’t just to “improve performance.” Like many artificial intelligence companies, Perplexity is building its data pipeline—your questions help train its models and improve the the service functionality.
But if you’re not careful, you could give up sensitive or personal information without realizing it. Unlike more privacy-focused platforms, Perplexity doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption or strong anonymous search settings.
2. A New Browser Designed to Track You
In 2025, Perplexity announced its AI-powered web browser—a move that signals a shift from search engine to full-blown data-collecting platform. This browser integrates AI search, real-time responses, and tracking across websites you visit.
The problem? It’s designed to monitor your activity. Every tab you open, link you click, or article you read can feed directly into Perplexity’s system. Like Chrome and Edge, it may soon become a tool for surveillance capitalism, where your behavior is tracked and sold to advertisers.
Some experts have warned that this turns Perplexity from a helpful AI chatbot into a privacy risk, especially since the company hasn’t been completely transparent about how it uses your browsing data.
3. Ads Are Coming—Whether You Like It or Not
Perplexity’s clean, ad-free experience may not last much longer. The startup has hinted at introducing ads into its AI results. This could turn trusted citations into sponsored content or subtly prioritize partners that pay to appear in your answers.
This raises an obvious concern: Will you still be getting objective information, or just paid promotion?
When ads get mixed with AI search responses, it becomes harder to tell what’s true, what’s an opinion, and what’s just marketing.
4. Enterprise and Developer Data May Also Be at Risk
Perplexity’s Enterprise Pro and API features are great for building AI tools and AI research workflows. But if businesses are using them to process sensitive data, like financial info, legal documents, or healthcare content, there are real risks of data leakage.
Unless you’re very careful with what data you’re feeding into Perplexity, there’s always a chance it could be used to further train large language models or be stored in ways you didn’t agree to.
5. You Might Not Know What’s Being Tracked
Perplexity may still gather details through cookies, web beacons, and device fingerprinting even if you never make an account. This could include:
- Your search behavior
- Links you click
- How long you stay on a page
- Your LinkedIn or WhatsApp referral sources
- What device you’re on—iPhone, Android, or desktop
This behavior turns users into data sources, especially valuable to marketers and advertisers looking to build profiles for targeted messaging.
Final Thoughts: Use With Caution
Perplexity is one of the most impressive AI-powered tools available today, but that power comes with a price. While it helps users find answers faster and with deep research capabilities, it’s also quietly building a system that depends on personal data.
Here’s how to protect yourself:
- Don’t enter sensitive information into the search bar.
- Turn off cookies and use a VPN to limit tracking.
- Read the privacy policy before signing up for Perplexity Pro or any API integration.
- Think twice about using the Perplexity browser or connecting your account to LinkedIn or other platforms.
As with many tech startups racing for dominance in generative AI, Perplexity may grow and ad revenue ahead of privacy. Stay alert, and remember—free AI often comes at the cost of your data.
