How Perplexity.ai Integrated MuPDF WebViewer to Deliver Context-Rich Research

Company Overview

Perplexity.ai is a leading AI-powered research assistant that combines large language models with real-time web search to provide direct, cited answers to user queries. Built for both everyday users and research professionals, the platform is designed to deliver fast, contextualized information with minimal friction. Perplexity emphasizes intuitive UX, fast performance, and accuracy in surfacing knowledge from both the web and user-uploaded documents.

The Situation

Perplexity was looking for a way to improve how users interact with PDF documents during conversations. The product team wanted users to be able to view PDFs inline, side-by-side with the chat interface, and interact with document content as part of the conversation flow. This required a viewer that could load documents quickly, render them accurately, and support fast, precise text highlighting.

The Solution

Perplexity selected MuPDF WebViewer to power its embedded PDF experience. MuPDF WebViewer stood out for its:

• Lightning-fast performance
• Accurate text rendering and positioning
• Reliable and efficient highlighting support

The speed and precision of MuPDF’s highlight rendering were key factors in the decision. Perplexity’s conversational UI often needs to highlight specific sentences or phrases in real time based on AI-generated responses.

With MuPDF WebViewer, Perplexity could now allow users to upload PDFs, view them within the app, and interact with highlighted content directly tied to the chat, delivering a fluid, context-rich research experience.

The Results

By integrating MuPDF WebViewer, Perplexity created a new level of usability for document-based research for their users. Users can ask questions, view sources, and interact with PDFs all in one place, enabling holistic context across documents and conversations.