--- title: "Augure vs Perplexity: live web answers or Canadian jurisdiction" description: "For Canadian teams weighing Perplexity Enterprise Pro and Sonar against Augure: Perplexity leads on cited web search, Augure keeps data in Canada. Switch guide." competitor: "Perplexity Enterprise Pro and the Sonar API" vendor: "Perplexity" category: "chat" canonical: "https://augureai.ca/compare/perplexity" updated: "2026-10-27" summary: "Perplexity is a US answer engine whose strength is live web search with citations, with an Enterprise tier that does not train on customer data and an API hosted on AWS in North America; Augure is a Canadian company whose chat product also includes web search and deep research, with customer data stored in Canada and Canadian inference tiers." faqs: - q: "Does Perplexity Enterprise train on my data, and where is it stored?" a: "Per Perplexity's help centre, Enterprise data is never used for AI training and uploaded files are retained for 7 days. Perplexity's privacy notice says data may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States, and its API FAQ says compute is hosted via Amazon Web Services in North America. As of 2026-10-27 the pages checked for this comparison do not publish a Canadian data residency option." - q: "Does Augure have web search like Perplexity?" a: "Augure Chat includes web search and deep research, and answers in English or Quebec French with data stored in Canada. On the API, web search is a separate endpoint, POST /v1/search, whose results you pass into a chat completion; /v1/chat/completions has no built-in search tool. Augure also reads any URL you put in a message." - q: "Can I move from the Sonar API to Augure's API without rewriting my code?" a: "Partly. Perplexity's docs say Sonar Chat Completions support ended on 27 September 2026 and its Agent API follows the OpenAI Responses interface, while Augure is OpenAI chat completions. Expect to change the base URL, key, model id and the call shape, and to add one /v1/search call if you need live results." --- # Augure vs Perplexity: live web answers or Canadian jurisdiction Perplexity is an answer engine: it searches the web, reads the results and writes a cited answer, with Enterprise Pro seats for organisations and a Sonar API for developers. Augure is a Canadian AI platform: a chat product with web search and deep research, plus an OpenAI-compatible API, with customer data stored in Canada and model tiers that run in Canada. The biggest difference is jurisdiction. Perplexity AI, Inc. is a US company that says data may be processed in the United States; Augure is a Canadian company with no US parent whose customer content is never handled by US-jurisdiction providers. Read this if you are a Canadian privacy officer, managing partner or developer weighing research quality against data location. ## At a glance | | Augure | Perplexity | |---|---|---| | Company and jurisdiction | Canadian company, no US parent or investors. | Perplexity AI, Inc., the data controller per its privacy notice; data may be transferred to and processed in the United States. | | Where customer data is stored | Canada. | Not published per region as of October 2026. The API FAQ says "compute is hosted via Amazon Web Services in North America." | | Where inference runs | Canadian infrastructure (Ontario) and vetted EU partners under zero-data-retention; never US providers. | Not published per region. Perplexity routes to third-party models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Nemotron are named on its pricing page). | | Your data used for training | Never. | Enterprise: "never used for AI training purposes," per the help centre. Free, Pro and Max: an "AI data retention" setting is on by default; opting out is forward-looking only. API: "does not use Customer Content to train generative AI models." | | Canadian residency option | Storage always in Canada. Accounts can be set Canada-only: requests then stay in Canada or fail with `503 residency_unavailable`, never served elsewhere. tofino-3 and the Augure Open models never leave Canada. | None published as of 2026-10-27 on the pages checked. | | Retention | Prompts never logged by Augure on the API; the gateway keeps no copy of a file after the request. | Enterprise: uploaded files kept 7 days; Enterprise Max adds configurable retention. API: zero data retention "is not the default." | | Web search | Chat: web search and deep research. API: standalone `POST /v1/search` plus link reading of URLs in your message; chat completions do not search by themselves. | The core product: live search with inline citations in chat; Search API and Agent API with `search_results` for developers. | | API | OpenAI-compatible chat completions, https://api.augureai.ca/v1 | Agent API at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1 supporting the OpenAI Responses interface; Sonar Chat Completions support ended 27 September 2026. | | Models | ossington-5 (256K), rosedale-1 (up to 1M), tofino-3, Augure Open (GLM-5.3, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next) | Sonar family plus third-party frontier models; Enterprise Max lists GPT-5 Thinking and Opus 4.6. | | Published certifications | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in progress (readiness underway with Vanta, per https://augureai.ca/security). TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256 at rest. | SOC 2 Type 2; GDPR and HIPAA aligned safeguards, per its security page. | | Admin features | Enterprise: SSO, dedicated support, custom compliance documentation. | Enterprise Pro: SSO, seat management, file controls. Enterprise Max: SCIM, audit logs, configurable data retention. | | Languages | English and Quebec French natively. | Not published as of October 2026. | | Price and currency | Free C$0, Pro C$20/mo, Max C$80/mo, Enterprise custom. CAD. | Enterprise Pro $40 per seat per month or $400 per year; Enterprise Max $325 per seat per month. Currency not named on the page (shown in dollars). | | Best fit | Regulated Canadian organisations that need Canadian storage and jurisdiction, in English or French. | Teams whose main job is fast, cited web research and who accept US processing. | ## Where Perplexity wins - Live web search with citations is the product. Every answer is grounded in current pages with numbered inline references, and the Agent API returns a `search_results` item with title, URL, snippet and date for each source. - Model breadth. Perplexity's pricing page names ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude and NVIDIA Nemotron, and Enterprise Max lists GPT-5 Thinking and Opus 4.6. Augure serves its own tiers and two open models. - Developer search primitives. The Search API is $5 per 1,000 requests ($1 with fast search), and the Agent API lists `perplexity/sonar` at $0.25 input and $2.50 output per million tokens. Augure's `/v1/search` returns results for you to feed into a model. - Published compliance posture. SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR and HIPAA-aligned safeguards on the security page, a trust centre, and Enterprise Max audit logs and SCIM. ## Where Augure wins - Jurisdiction. Customer data is stored in Canada. Customer conversations, documents and AI inference are never handled by US-jurisdiction providers, so the CLOUD Act's reach over US-controlled providers does not extend to customer content. Limited US processing exists for payment card networks and email delivery only, documented in the privacy policy. - Inference location you can check. rosedale-1 runs on Canadian inference (Ontario); tofino-3 and the Augure Open models never leave Canada; every API response carries `_augure.inference_region`. Canada-only accounts fail cleanly rather than being served elsewhere. - Research is included, in Canada. Augure Chat offers web search and deep research, and the Max plan includes deep research agents, with data stored in Canada. - Quebec French. Native English and Quebec French across Chat, Knowledge and Oshan, and models tuned for Canadian law and Quebec regulatory context. - Documents and context. PDFs up to 25 MB and 200 pages are read on the gateway with OCR fallback, and rosedale-1 accepts up to 1M tokens. ## Switch from Perplexity to Augure ### Chat (Enterprise Pro seats) 1. Export what you need from Perplexity. As of 2026-10-27 the pages checked for this comparison do not describe an organisation-wide export tool, so ask your Perplexity admin what is available before you cancel seats. 2. Create an Augure account at https://chat.augureai.ca, or email enterprise@augureai.ca for a team with SSO. 3. What carries over: documents you re-upload (Pro: 100 chat uploads per month, Max: unlimited) and projects you recreate. What does not: Perplexity threads, file connectors, and anything tied to a specific third-party model. 4. Pick the plan: Pro (C$20) for most users, Max (C$80) for deep research agents and unlimited documents, Enterprise for SSO and compliance documentation. 5. Run both for two weeks. Compare current-events research, where Perplexity is strongest, against work on your own documents and in French. ### API (Sonar and the Agent API) Perplexity's docs say Sonar Chat Completions support ended on 27 September 2026 and that the Agent API follows the OpenAI Responses interface. Augure is OpenAI chat completions. So this is a base URL, key, model and call-shape change, with two calls instead of one when you need live results: `/v1/search`, then `/v1/chat/completions`. 1. Create a key at https://augureai.ca/developers (`aug_sk_live_...`). 2. Set the base URL to `https://api.augureai.ca/v1`. 3. Map models. | Perplexity | Augure | Why | |---|---|---| | `sonar` (effort `fast`) | `tofino-3` plus `/v1/search` | Fast, thinking off, served in Canada. | | `sonar-pro` (effort `fast`) | `ossington-5` plus `/v1/search` | Reasoning tier; `reasoning_effort: "none"` when speed matters. | | `sonar-reasoning-pro` (effort `low`) | `ossington-5` plus `/v1/search` | Reasoning with `reasoning_content` returned separately. | | `sonar-deep-research` (effort `high`) | `rosedale-1` plus several `/v1/search` calls | Long context and reliable tool calling for your own research loop. | 4. Before and after in Python: ```python import os import httpx from openai import OpenAI # Before: Perplexity Agent API through the OpenAI SDK (Responses interface) client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.perplexity.ai/v1", api_key=os.environ["PERPLEXITY_API_KEY"]) resp = client.responses.create(model="perplexity/sonar", input="Quebec Law 25 enforcement in 2026") print(resp.output_text) # After: Augure, search first, then generate headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['AUGURE_API_KEY']}"} results = httpx.post( "https://api.augureai.ca/v1/search", headers=headers, json={"query": "Quebec Law 25 enforcement 2026", "count": 5, "lang": "en"}, ).json()["results"] context = "\n".join(f"- {r['title']}: {r['url']}\n {r['description']}" for r in results) client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.augureai.ca/v1", api_key=os.environ["AUGURE_API_KEY"]) resp = client.chat.completions.create( model="ossington-5", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": f"Using these results, summarise Law 25 enforcement in 2026 with sources.\n{context}"}], ) print(resp.choices[0].message.content) print(resp.model_extra["_augure"]["inference_region"]) ``` If you already know the page, put its URL in the message: Augure fetches it server-side and lists it in `_augure.fetched_urls`. 5. Re-check: omit `max_tokens` on reasoning models (cap 32,768; tofino-3 16,384); `reasoning_effort` values; `response_format` json_schema is not combined with `tools` on reasoning models; `/v1/search` returns 1 to 20 results; default rate limit 60 requests per minute and 20 in flight per key. 6. Run both for a week, compare citations and answer quality, then cut over. ## Keep Perplexity if - Your main use is current-events research where cited, live answers matter more than data location. - You want to choose among several frontier models from one seat. - You need the Search API or Agent API as a search primitive at scale. - US processing is acceptable under your policies and Enterprise terms meet your needs. ## Sources - https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/legal/privacy-policy (checked 2026-10-27): Perplexity AI, Inc. as controller; transfer, storage and processing in the United States; last updated 23 October 2026. - https://intercom.help/perplexity-ai/en/articles/11564572-data-collection-at-perplexity (checked 2026-10-27): "AI data retention" default on for Free, Pro and Max; Enterprise data never used for AI training; files retained 7 days; updated 3 March 2026. - https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10352986-enterprise-pricing-and-billing-frequently-asked-questions (checked 2026-10-27): Enterprise Pro $40 per seat per month or $400 per year; Enterprise Max $325 per month or $3,250 per year; mixing tiers. - https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11187416-which-perplexity-subscription-plan-is-right-for-you (checked 2026-10-27): Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max features, SCIM, audit logs, configurable retention, GPT-5 Thinking and Opus 4.6. - https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/perplexity-launches-enterprise-pro (checked 2026-10-27): launch 23 April 2024; no training on enterprise data; queries deleted after 7 days; SSO; SOC2. - https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise (checked 2026-10-27): "We never train our LLMs on enterprise customer's data"; SOC 2 Type II; SSO and SCIM; audit logs. - https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise/security (checked 2026-10-27): SOC 2 Type 2; GDPR and HIPAA aligned safeguards; AWS accounts and IAM; Cloudflare. - https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise/pricing (checked 2026-10-27): models named (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Nemotron); Pro and Max consumer prices. - https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/resources/faq (checked 2026-10-27): "compute is hosted via Amazon Web Services in North America"; API does not train on Customer Content; ZDR not the default; Agent API supports the OpenAI Responses interface at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1. - https://docs.perplexity.ai/api-reference/chat-completions-post (checked 2026-10-27): "Sonar Chat Completions support ended on September 27, 2026"; Agent API and Open Responses; effort mapping for Sonar tiers. - https://docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/models (checked 2026-10-27): `perplexity/sonar` at $0.25 input and $2.50 output per million tokens; `search_results` output. - https://docs.perplexity.ai/getting-started/pricing (checked 2026-10-27): Search API $5 per 1,000 requests, $1 with fast search. - https://augureai.ca/docs/api (checked 2026-10-27): Augure residency, `/v1/search`, link reading, limits, no prompt logging. - https://augureai.ca/docs/models (checked 2026-10-27): Augure model ids, caps and CAD prices. - https://augureai.ca/llms.txt (checked 2026-10-27): Chat includes web search and deep research; plans; languages; ownership.