For Personal Financial Advisors ·
What you'll accomplish
Researching a complex planning topic (specific tax rules, obscure estate strategies, Medicare provisions) currently means 60-90 minutes of reading primary sources. Perplexity provides cited, accurate overviews in 5 minutes, with sources you can verify, on any topic you throw at it.
What you'll need
Navigate to perplexity.ai in any browser. You don't need an account for basic searches, but creating a free account lets you save your search history and access previous research. Click Sign Up or just start searching immediately.
What you should see: A search bar in the center of the screen, similar to Google but with a more conversational interface.
Type your question in plain language, the more specific, the better. Don't keyword-search like you would on Google. Ask as you would ask a knowledgeable colleague.
Good examples:
Perplexity generates a narrative answer with numbered citations appearing in brackets like [1], [2], [3]. Scroll down to see the full list of sources with links. The sources are typically IRS publications, official guidance, financial news, or academic sources, not random blogs.
What you should see: A 300-600 word answer organized into clear sections, with citation numbers throughout and a clickable source list at the bottom.
For any provision you'll use in client advice, click at least one source link and verify the specific numbers or rules. Perplexity is accurate 90%+ of the time on financial topics, but regulations change and the stakes in financial planning are high. Spend 2 minutes confirming the key figure against an IRS publication or official source.
After the main answer, ask follow-ups in the same conversation: "How does this interact with the pro-rata rule?" or "Are there any exceptions for surviving spouses?" or "What changed with the SECURE 2.0 Act?" Perplexity maintains context from your previous question and builds on it.
Copy the key findings into your own notes or a Google Doc. Perplexity doesn't maintain a permanent record of your searches without an account. If you're researching for a specific client situation, paste the Perplexity summary into a "research notes" section of their CRM record.