How to choose an AI search engine, 2026 Perplexity Tiangong actual measurement comparison

How to choose an AI search engine, 2026 Perplexity Tiangong actual measurement comparison

In the past year, more and more people have found that the first thing they do when they open a browser is no longer to type keywords in a traditional search box, but to directly ask questions to a "speaking" search tool. The AI ​​search engine combines the steps of retrieval, reading, and summarization into one action. If you ask a question, it will directly give you an answer with a source. Overseas Perplexity, domestic MiTa AI search and Tiangong AI search are all the most discussed representatives of this trend. Facing them, the most direct confusion for many people is: which one to choose and what scenarios each is suitable for. This article puts them together and sorts them out from the dimensions of Chinese support, information source quality, citation accuracy, speed, and price, to help you make judgments based on your own use.

What is the difference between AI search and traditional search?

The logic of traditional search engines is to give you a list of links, and you click in to read, judge, and summarize by yourself. It takes "finding candidate pages" to the extreme, but the subsequent reading and refining are all up to you. The AI ​​search engine has a different approach. After getting the candidate web page, it will use a large language model to read the content, and then directly give you a compiled answer. It usually also puts a reference source subscript at the end of the sentence to facilitate you to check the original text.

The benefits of this change are intuitive. You no longer need to open a dozen tabs one by one to compare. Especially for questions that require multiple pieces of information to be answered, AI search can save a lot of time. But there are costs. The model may misread during the induction process, may put unrelated sources together, or may give a conclusion that seems smooth but is actually untenable without you noticing it at all. Therefore, the industry generally believes that AI search is more suitable for the "first round of information sorting". The really important judgment is to open the source it provides and confirm it yourself. After understanding this difference, it will be much clearer if you look at the differences between the following three products.

Perplexity’s positioning and features

Perplexity is an overseas product, one of the earliest widely recognized AI search tracks in the English world. Its product form is very pure. When you enter it, you will see a question box. Below the answer, there are dense quotation marks. If you click on it, you can jump to the original web page. The overall impression it gives is that the "traceability" thing is done relatively solidly, and almost every key assertion in the answer is matched with the source as much as possible, which is a friendly experience for people who need to check.

Perplexity also supports follow-up questions. You can dig deeper on a topic, and it will remember the context and continue to help you search. It also provides different retrieval modes and model selections, allowing users to make their own trade-off between speed and depth. For Chinese users, Perplexity's English material coverage and English question and answer experience are generally considered to be strengths, and it has rich sources when dealing with overseas academic, technological, and product information. The relatively weak point is that its coverage of Chinese content and understanding of Chinese context are not as good as domestic products. When encountering pure Chinese data retrieval, the number and quality of sources found may not be as good as Mita or Tiangong. In terms of access methods, overseas products also have certain thresholds for domestic users, so you need to pay attention to this.

The positioning and characteristics of Secret Tower AI search

MiTa AI search comes from Shanghai MiTa. This company was previously known to some professional users for its legal and text processing tools. AI search can be seen as an extension of its understanding of Chinese content. The first impression given by Secret Tower is that the interface is relatively restrained and the answer structure is clear. It will break down the retrieved content according to key points, and sometimes lay out the context of a topic in the form of an outline or mind map, which is more friendly to people who are doing information sorting.

In the Chinese scene, the performance of Secret Tower is often considered relatively stable. Its coverage of Chinese materials, its understanding of Chinese questions, and its ability to organize scattered Chinese information into organized answers are all relatively top-notch products in this category. It also emphasizes source annotation, and the answers will have reference links for easy review. Secret Tower usually provides different search focuses, such as more comprehensive searches or more focused answers, allowing users to switch as needed. Its relative shortcomings are the same as most AI searches. When faced with particularly professional or unpopular topics, the depth and accuracy of the summary still rely on the quality of the underlying sources. When encountering questions with few sources themselves, the reliability of the answers will be compromised.

Positioning and characteristics of Tiangong AI search

Tiangong AI Search comes from Kunlun Wanwei. This company has an early layout in domestic AI models and applications. Tiangong is its product in the search direction. Similar to Secret Tower, Tiangong is also a local product for Chinese users. It has natural contextual advantages in retrieving and understanding Chinese materials. When dealing with domestic news, daily life, and localization issues, it is usually possible to find more suitable Chinese sources.

Tiangong's product format is also Q&A plus source annotation, and it also supports continuous questioning around a topic. In contrast, Tiangong often combines search capabilities with broader AI assistant functions. In addition to search-based Q&A, it also extends to writing assistance and content generation. It is positioned more like a comprehensive AI tool rather than a pure search tool. For users who both want to search for information and want to let it help them write something, this integrated experience is more trouble-free. It should be reminded that when a product undertakes both retrieval and generation tasks, users should pay more attention to distinguishing which part is the search result supported by the source and which part is the content generated by the model itself. The latter needs to be verified by themselves.

Comparison of Chinese support dimensions

If your core need is Chinese data retrieval, this dimension is often decisive. Overall, Secret Tower and Tiangong, as domestic products, are generally considered to be more suitable than Perplexity in terms of Chinese content coverage, understanding of Chinese questions, and retrieval of domestic information sources. They can more accurately understand colloquial questions, industry slang and regional expressions in Chinese, and the Chinese sources they find are usually more dominant in quantity and relevance.

Perplexity is not unavailable in Chinese. It can also ask questions in Chinese and answer questions in Chinese. However, its data base is more biased towards the English world. When dealing with purely Chinese questions, especially those with strong localization, it is easy to have fewer sources or sources that are biased towards English media. Therefore, a more practical judgment is that if the question is highly dependent on Chinese primary sources, give priority to MiTa or Tiangong; if the question itself involves a large amount of overseas English information, Perplexity's English search capability is its strength. Here is only a qualitative description. As for who is stronger on a certain topic, it still depends on the results of your actual trial.

Information source quality and citation accuracy

The quality of information sources refers to which web pages the AI ​​search draws materials from; the accuracy of citations refers to whether the subtitles it puts behind the answers actually support that sentence. These two points directly determine whether an answer can be trusted. All three products emphasize "with sources", but having sources does not mean that the source is reliable, nor does it mean that the citations are correct. This is the most easily overlooked trap when using AI search.

In terms of experience, Perplexity is often considered to be more meticulous in terms of citation density and traceability in English materials, with almost every key sentence listed with the source as much as possible. Secret Tower is relatively organized in the source organization of Chinese materials and is suitable for structured sorting. Because Tiangong is more comprehensive about tool attributes, the source annotation of search results also exists, but users must distinguish between search content and generated content. It needs to be emphasized that no matter which one is used, there may be a situation where "the subtitles and the text do not match", that is, a certain sentence in the answer cannot actually be found in the source it cites. The common suggestion in the industry is to click on the original source text to confirm any important conclusion. Don't assume that it is accurate just because it has a subtitle.

Speed ​​and experience

Speed ​​is affected by many factors such as network environment, retrieval mode, whether to call heavier models, etc., so it is difficult to give a fixed conclusion. Generally speaking, all three products can give answers to simple questions relatively quickly. However, when you turn on a deeper search mode or allow it to integrate many sources, the waiting time will be correspondingly longer. This is an inevitable trade-off between search depth and response speed.

In terms of user experience, each of the three has its own emphasis. Perplexity's interface is minimalist and the questioning experience is smooth, making it suitable for people who like to dig deeper. Secret Tower has put great effort into the structured presentation of the results. Organizational methods such as outline and key points are friendly to those who organize the data. Tiangong combines search with broader AI functions, making it suitable for users who want a one-stop tool. For domestic users, access stability is also part of the experience. Local products are usually more worry-free in this regard, while overseas products may require additional access conditions. It is recommended that you don't just look at the single speed, but combine the types of questions you ask most often, and then make a judgment after using it for a few days. After all, the experience is highly personal.

Price and availability

In terms of price, these three products usually provide a free and available basic version, and also have paid tiers for higher frequency or in-depth needs. The paid version often relaxes the number of searches, available models, and in-depth functions. Since the pricing, tiers and rights of each company will be adjusted from time to time, specific figures are not listed here. For details, please refer to the official public page. It is most secure to go to the official website to confirm the current plan before using it.

In terms of usability, a practical consideration is access threshold. Secret Tower and Tiangong are domestic products, and access by domestic users is usually relatively straightforward. As an overseas product, Perplexity has a certain threshold for domestic users to access it. This must be taken into consideration when selecting a model. Otherwise, even if the function is suitable, if it is not used smoothly, the experience will be greatly affected. In addition, if you are more concerned about data and privacy, it is recommended that you take a look at each company's privacy statement before registering and uploading any sensitive content to understand how your questions and uploaded content will be processed. Think about price, access, and privacy together to make your selection complete.

Suggestions for scene selection

After taking apart the dimensions and reading them, when it comes to the actual choice, it is best to make the decision based on your main use. If you often do academic or scientific research and need a large amount of overseas English documents and materials, Perplexity’s strengths are the richness of English sources and the traceability of citations, so you can give it a try first. If your daily life is dominated by Chinese information, such as checking domestic policies, local news, and industry information, local products such as Secret Tower and Tiangong are usually more suitable in the Chinese context, and the sources you find are more relevant.

If you are doing structured sorting of Chinese materials and need to sort out the context of a topic and list it into key points, Secret Tower's organized results organization is worth a try. If you want a comprehensive tool that can both search and help you write something, Tiangong's positioning that combines retrieval and generation will be more trouble-free. In daily casual situations where you want a quick answer, the free versions of the three models are basically enough. You can install them all and ask each question again for comparison. Ultimately, no one is suitable for everyone. The key is to figure out what kind of questions you ask the most.

Practical tips for mixing and matching

In fact, there is no need to choose one among the three. A smarter approach is to mix and match them and use them as tools with their own strengths. A common usage is to throw the same question to two products respectively to see if the answers and sources they give are consistent. If the conclusions corroborate each other, you will have more confidence in the answer; if there are obvious differences, it just reminds you that this topic needs to be more careful to verify the original text.

The specific division of labor can be as follows: questions involving overseas English materials are given to Perplexity, purely Chinese and localized questions are given to Mita or Tiangong. When you need to organize the data into an organized form, use the one that is good at structuring. No matter which one you use, one principle remains the same: treat the answer to an AI search as the starting point rather than the end point. Key conclusions must be confirmed by clicking on the source. Sensitive information such as numbers, versions, and prices must be checked back on the official page. AI search has indeed made finding information much easier, but while it reads the information for you, it also returns the responsibility of judgment to you more covertly. The smarter the tool, the more important it may be to retain your own sanity.

FAQ

Can AI search engines completely replace traditional searches?

We cannot simply say replacement at this time. AI search is good at summarizing multiple pieces of information into one answer, eliminating the trouble of clicking on links one by one, and is suitable for the first round of information sorting. However, it may misread or splice sources when summarizing. When encountering problems that require accurate verification, you still need to click on the original web page to confirm it yourself. The industry generally regards it as a supplement rather than a replacement for traditional search, and it is more reliable to use the two methods together as needed.

Perplexity Secret Tower Tiangong Which Chinese is better?

MiTa comes from Shanghai MiTa, and Tiangong comes from Kunlun Wanwei. They are both local products for Chinese users, and are usually more suitable in terms of coverage of Chinese materials and understanding of Chinese questions. Perplexity is an overseas product and is also available in Chinese, but the data base is biased towards the English world. If the question is highly dependent on Chinese primary sources, it is generally more suitable to use Mita or Tiangong. Here is only a qualitative description. Which one is more suitable will be determined by your actual trial.

Do these AI search engines charge a fee?

These products usually provide free basic versions available, as well as paid tiers for more frequent or in-depth needs. Since the pricing and rights of each company will be adjusted from time to time, specific figures are not listed here. Please refer to the official public page for details. It is recommended to confirm the current plan on the respective official website before use, and then decide whether to pay based on your frequency of use.

Are the answers given by AI search reliable? Will there be errors?

Errors will occur, this is what you must expect when using it. Even if there is a quotation mark at the end of the answer, there may be situations where the subtitle does not match the text, that is, a certain sentence cannot be found in the source it cites. It is recommended that you click on the original source text to confirm any important conclusions. When sensitive information such as numbers, prices, versions, etc. is involved, you should go back to the official page to check. Do not assume that it is accurate just because there is a subtitle.

Should I use just one type or a combination of several?

If it is used for a single purpose, just choose the one that fits the most. But a more practical approach is to mix and match, asking two versions of the same question separately to see if the conclusions corroborate each other. When they are consistent, you will be more confident, and when they are different, it reminds you that you need to verify carefully. You can ask Perplexity to handle overseas English questions, and MiTa or Tiangong to handle local Chinese questions. When you need to sort out the context, use the one that is good at structuring, and each can take advantage of its strengths.