Following up on my friend Steven J. Vaughan-Nicols' article praising the Perplexity search engine, I decided to do a fast, spontaneous test.

Reading the news over lunch, I saw that an actress named Jill Jacobson had died. The obit said she was in Star Trek.

I said to myself, “I wonder who she played on Star Trek?”

The article said she appeared on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine.”

First I asked ChatGPT what characters she played. ChatGPT replied that she only ever appeared on TNG. I asked about DS9, and it said she had not appeared on that show.

I searched Kagi. Interestingly, Kagi turned up several articles titled “Who did Jill Jacobson play on Star Trek”—the exact words of my query.

I know that’s a common SEO trick (“What time is the Super Bowl?”) but would not think that would be implemented for such a specific question.

Google’s AI summary says “Vanessa” on TNG, with no mention of DS9.

And here is Perplexity’s answer — complete, concise, and impressive.

What’s the real answer? I can’t say for sure; I’m not a superfan of those particular iterations of Trek. However, I consider the Memory Alpha wiki definitive on issues of Trek lore, and it agrees with the IMDB.