How to use Perplexity in your PM work

Lenny Rachitsky surveyed hundreds of product managers, then ran follow-up calls, to collect concrete ways PMs use Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine, in their daily work. The post groups 27 real prompts into six areas: growth strategy, benchmarks, market research, best practices, tool evaluation, and technical jargon. It matters because chatbots are quickly becoming everyday co-pilots for PMs, and the examples show how to turn research tasks into fast, specific queries. The post's core message is that PMs should experiment with these tools directly rather than wait for the practice to mature.

01Key takeaways

• Use chatbots for fast first-pass research on benchmarks, competitors, and growth tactics.
• Write specific prompts that name the company, metric, or comparison you need.
• Ask for structured outputs such as feature, customer, and review comparisons across tools.
• Use AI explanations to get up to speed quickly on unfamiliar technical terms.
• Verify figures and sources before relying on AI-generated benchmarks in decisions.

02Key sections

Why chatbots are becoming PM co-pilots

Polls showed a majority of responding PMs use a chatbot daily and most use one weekly. Perplexity ranked second only to ChatGPT in mentions.

Growth strategy and benchmarks

Prompts cover growth accounting, referral and reverse-trial examples, app store mechanics, and benchmark figures such as push open rates, retention, CSAT, and NPS.

Market research and competitive scans

PMs ask for go-to-market breakdowns of specific companies, usage frequency for categories like ridesharing, and how competitors structure upsells.

Best practices and tool evaluation

Requests include brainstorming techniques, examples of frameworks applied by known companies, side-by-side tool comparisons, and API or vendor landscapes.

Technical jargon

Prompts ask for plain-language explanations of metrics and engineering concepts such as DAU/MAU, Kubernetes, GraphQL versus REST, and backlink types.

03From the post

“1. On saying no 2. The art of the pivot, part 1: The definitive list of successful pivots 3. The art of the pivot, part 2: How, why, and when to pivot 4. In defense of feature team PMs Subscribe to get access to these posts, and every post. For more: Podcast | Lennybot | Swag | Best of Lenny’s Newsletter | Hire your next product leader. Chatbot tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are quickly becoming de facto co-pilots for product managers. I ran this poll on X and LinkedIn, and holy shit, over 50% of PMs who responded are now using a chatbot daily. And 85% are using one weekly 🤯 Robert Bye, a PM at Figma, shared a common sentiment: When was the last time a new tool went from non-existent to daily use for the majority of product managers? Things are changing fast. Interestingly, Perplexity was the second most mentioned chatbot, behind ChatGPT. I’m not surprised. I recently did a deep dive on how Perplexity builds product, and while working on that piece, I got to talking…”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.