Perplexity offers free AI tools to university students
As reported by VentureBeat, Perplexity, the AI‑powered search engine rivaling Google, ChatGPT, and Claude, has teamed up with identity‑verification specialists SheerID to offer up to two years of free access to its premium “Perplexity Pro” service (typically US $20/month) to 264 million university and post‑secondary students worldwide.
Perplexity Pro offers advanced academic features: cited research, in‑depth reports, and interactive AI applications, tailored to support studying, writing, and idea generation. Perplexity Pro features include cited answers for queries, Deep Research extended reports, automated task flows via Perplexity Tasks, and Perplexity Labs’ interactive activities. SheerID provides a trusted, rapid verification process, drawing on over 200,000 authoritative data sources across 190 countries.
Tom’s Take: Perplexity joins Google, OpenAI, and others in a competition to capture the rapidly growing student AI market. By partnering with SheerID to offer two years of free Pro access to verified university students worldwide, Perplexity is positioning itself as a research-focused assistant for students with citation-based answers. On the other hand, Google is leveraging Google Workspace for Education to embed Gemini, and an assortment of AI tools, directly within its popular Google Docs and Google Classroom tools, amongst others. In addition, it’s expanding its popular NotebookLM research assistant to students 13+. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the most widely used tool by students, now integrates with educational partners and tools like Microsoft Copilot. While Perplexity’s academic tools are impressive, OpenAI continues to lead in versatility, reach, and popularity.
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