By Rahul Naskar
Publication Date: 2026-08-28 12:00:00
A couple of years ago, I heard people online saying that Perplexity AI would dethrone Google Search. That was enough inspiration for me to try the AI tool, and it worked for me instantly.
While I saw its potential to beat Google Search, I never made a sweeping remark for or against Perplexity. That was primarily because I thought it was too early to predict the future of generative AI.
Two years have passed since then, and I still believe that it’s too early to predict who will win the AI race. However, I’m more certain about my future equation with Perplexity.
After seeing its trajectory over the last couple of years, I no longer believe that it can replace Google Search. While I haven’t given up on it completely, I recently started looking for alternatives.
But this time around, I was keen on replacing it with something I could run locally. Fortunately, I found four local AI search tools that make abandoning Perplexity surprisingly easy.
