Perplexity just brought in a 'Squid Game' star to convince you to ditch Google

Squid Game star Lee Jung Jae appearing in an advert for Perplexity — (Image credit: Perplexity)

While we're well and truly in the 'Age of AI', we're still waiting for those barbs from one ambitious company to another in the way Mac and PC did battle all those years ago.

Thankfully, we're starting to get some hints at that friendly competition (for now, at least), with Perplexity's latest TV spot firing a cheeky dig at Google's search results.

Perplexity takes aim at rivals with Squid Game TV star

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In the new 'Perplexity Questions' ad you can see above, the company takes Lee Jung-Jae, star of the popular Netflix drama about a series of contestants tasked with tackling gruesome challenges, with... some kind of challenge.

Finding himself stuck in a hallway with a rapidly lowering temperature, the Korean star is asked how to best remove coffee stains from a shirt, turning to 'Poogle' — a not so subtle nod to one of Perplexity's rivals and the brand most people turn to for answers online.

With his feed full of ads and goodness knows what else, he switches to Perplexity ('Where Knowledge Begins'), and gets an instant response that satisfies the monitor asking the question — even translating from Korean to English in the process.

'Don't use glue'

Next up, the mysterious monitor demands to know how to get cheese to stick to pizza, one of Google's AI overviews most notorious gaffes.

"Use fresh low-moisture mozarella," the chatbot responds, sneakily adding "don't use glue".

It's clear the ad is making a play for ChatGPT's seemingly synonymous nature with chatbot queries, but it's hard to see what it offers that OpenAI's own product can't — although the digs at Google certainly help it prove its superiority against search engines.

Can it win this battle royale of chatbots, though? That remains to be seen — but it's clearly not afraid to get its hands dirty to achieve victory.

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Lloyd Coombes is a freelance tech and fitness writer. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as in computer and gaming tech, with previous works published on TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Live Science and more. You'll find him regularly testing the latest MacBook or iPhone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games as Gaming Editor for the Daily Star. He also covers board games and virtual reality, just to round out the nerdy pursuits.

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