On Tuesday, two AI startups tried convincing the world their AI chatbots had been adequate to be an correct, real-time supply of data throughout a high-stakes presidential election: xAI and Perplexity.
Elon Musk’s Grok failed nearly immediately, providing mistaken solutions about races’ outcomes earlier than the polls had even closed.
However, Perplexity provided useful, real-time election insights and maps all through the evening, linking to dependable assets and providing historic context the place acceptable.
Perplexity took a dangerous wager, and it paid off.
Late final week, the startup introduced the launch of its election data hub, that includes real-time maps populated with voting information from Democracy Works and the Related Press, the identical data sources that energy Google’s election map. This strategy was completely different from most different AI chatbots, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which merely refused to reply questions associated to the election.
It’s comprehensible why most AI labs sat this election out. It was the protected and accountable alternative for a lot of of them, as they’ve been stricken by embarrassing hallucinations sooner or later or one other within the final 12 months.
Particularly, OpenAI not too long ago launched its Google competitor, ChatGPT Search. However the Sam Altman-led startup didn’t belief the function to reply questions on this election, directing customers to Vote.org as an alternative. ChatGPT Search remains to be an early product, which is too unreliable for folks to make use of in on a regular basis eventualities, and OpenAI appears to have acknowledged that.
In distinction, Perplexity has been testing its Google competitor out in the actual world since December 2022 and clearly felt it had sufficient information to provide this election a shot.
Perplexity’s election evening success might set it again in its ongoing struggle with media corporations; particularly, Dow Jones’ current lawsuit claiming the startup competes with media corporations for a similar audiences. Regardless of the various outbound hyperlinks inside the AI chatbot’s solutions, Perplexity’s election hub was itself a vacation spot on election evening, and it didn’t require customers to enterprise off the app to get all their data. It definitely looks as if Perplexity was competing with media corporations, who had been additionally vying for eyeballs on election evening, although Perplexity collects its data from these shops. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas even claimed “record traffic” the day earlier than and clearly hoped to keep up that momentum.
Whereas Perplexity had offers with Democracy Works, the AP, and some different media corporations to energy election options, the startup additionally indiscriminately used stay election protection from different media shops similar to CBS, CNN, and the BBC. Positive, Perplexity provided attribution, however the firm hasn’t introduced any revenue-sharing partnerships with these shops and it’s unclear if any cash modified palms.
How Perplexity fared on Election Night time
First, let’s begin with Perplexity’s election options that had nothing to do with generative AI: the charts.
Individuals sometimes love visible election charts, clicking into them and seeing granular information on a state-by-state stage. It was a sensible transfer for Perplexity to construct these out and ensured their AI techniques weren’t the only real supply of data within the app.
When visiting Perplexity’s election hub, customers had been met with a familiar-looking electoral map of america, with some states blue for Kamala Harris and others crimson for Donald Trump. Clearly, Perplexity didn’t reinvent the wheel with this function — copying the show Google and each TV community reveals — however they didn’t must. All through the evening, this map appeared to replace each minute or so, reflecting the knowledge on the Related Press’ web site. It was a great way to observe the election.
There have been bugs in Perplexity’s map periodically all through the evening. Srinivas responded to customers on X that had been reporting flaws, similar to Perplexity not reporting the share of votes that had been counted, and shortly addressed them.
Perplexity provided one other acquainted function, a state-by-state tracker, giving real-time details about swing states.
Now for the AI half. When requested questions concerning the present state of the presidential race, Perplexity answered with hedged responses that also gave largely correct data. These solutions weren’t as insightful as a commentator on CNN, nor as entertaining as The New York Instances’ election needle (which made a comeback this 12 months). Nevertheless, Perplexity solely confirmed a couple of small hallucinations and largely produced related info in a well timed method. That’s greater than I can say for another AI chatbot available on the market.
When attempting to reply follow-up questions on Harris’ lead in “Blue Wall” states, Perplexity did hallucinate barely. It was referencing polling information, when it ought to have been referencing real-time votes at this level within the evening. Nevertheless, the overall data right here was in the suitable ballpark, and different AI chatbots simply wouldn’t reply this query.
Right here’s one other follow-up query we tried: What ballots have but to be counted in swing states? It was arduous to search out a solution to this query elsewhere. Granted, the one helpful solutions right here had been for Pennsylvania and North Carolina, however a minimum of Perplexity didn’t hallucinate for the opposite states.
This election was the primary to function AI chatbots as a supply of data round our democratic processes. Nevertheless, this won’t be the final election the place that’s the case. Nicely-funded AI startups are preventing to ship data to folks in new, quicker, extra concise methods. Accuracy will probably be key to success right here shifting ahead. To this point, Perplexity has the early lead.
