Kerna vs Perplexity

Kerna is an AI email assistant for Gmail and Outlook on macOS, Windows, and the web. At a user’s request, it sorts open messages into categories such as Urgent, Respond, Invoice, Waiting, and Notification; users can also set custom categories and industry taxonomies. It drafts replies based on the full thread, with controls for intent and tone, and makes structured thread summaries for conversations of up to 50 messages. It can summarize attachments, extract selected fields into exportable tables, and translate inbound messages and outbound replies in 45 languages. Integrations include Calendar, Contacts, and Sheets as well as Gmail and Outlook. Kerna says it acts only when a user initiates a request, processes content in memory, discards it afterward, and redacts personal data before it reaches the inference provider. Its trust information reports TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest. Kerna has a free plan; paid plans start at €12/mo. Outlook requires a Microsoft-hosted mailbox; POP or IMAP and on-premises Exchange are unsupported.

Perplexity is an answer engine that searches the open web and returns answers with inline citations. It can search files and connected apps alongside the web, and can select among more than 20 leading models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Nemotron. Deep Research conducts searches across many sources and produces a report. Access is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with an API also listed. The free plan has limited weekly use for simple questions. Pro costs $20 a month and adds Computer, premium data sources, web search, files, apps, model council, and model selection. Max costs $200 a month and offers higher limits for Deep Research, resource generation, file uploads, and monthly video creation. Enterprise Pro is $40 a month per seat; Enterprise Max is $325 a month per seat. Enterprise plans bill by seat, and API use requires separate credits. Perplexity lists more than 400 app connectors.