AI Radar

Sonar (February 2024)

Retired · Language · Milestone

Sonar (February 2024) refers to Perplexity's sonar-small and sonar-medium language models, launched on 23 February 2024 on the Perplexity API, each as a chat id and a search-enhanced online id. The API docs listed them at 7B and 8x7B parameters without naming base models. All four ids were removed on 14 May 2024. [1] [2] [3] Primary source

Timeline of Sonar (February 2024) →

Claims and evidence

  • Released Day of the changelog post that announced the launch, from its createdAt timestamp (2024-02-23T23:21Z, the same calendar day in US time); the visible page shows only a relative date (about 16 hours ago in the capture of 2024-02-24 15:43Z). Primary source[1]Announcing Our Newest Model; page data createdAt [2]Perplexity Models table
  • Deprecated Month of the deprecation notice.Other sources give: [4]Model Deprecation Notice, April 2024 The changelog files the same notice under April 2024. Archived primaryOriginal source unavailable[3]page data createdAt 2024-05-07T03:53Z
  • Retired The notice gives May 14 without a year; it was published in 2024. Primary source[3] [4]Model Deprecation Notice, April 2024
  • Status Retired Primary source[3] [4]Model Deprecation Notice, April 2024
  • Replaced by Llama 3 SonarThe notice recommends switching to models from the Llama 3 family, among them llama-3-sonar-small-32k and llama-3-sonar-large-32k. Archived primaryOriginal source unavailable[3]
  • Successor of PPLX Online LLMs EditorialPerplexity does not call these models successors of the PPLX online models; the launch post says they surpass its earlier models and announces the removal of pplx-70b-online. Primary source[1]Announcing Our Newest Model; Model Deprecation Notice
  • Change · Context length Context length of 16384 tokens for the chat ids and 12000 for the online ids, up from 4096 for the PPLX online models at release.Compared with PPLX Online LLMs Archived primaryOriginal source unavailable[2]Perplexity Models table, Context Length [5]Supported Models table
  • Change · Size The larger tier, sonar-medium, is listed at 8x7B parameters in mixture-of-experts notation; the larger PPLX online model was pplx-70b-online.Compared with PPLX Online LLMs Archived primaryOriginal source unavailable[2]Perplexity Models table, Parameter Count
  • Change · Other Perplexity says the new models surpass its earlier models in cost-efficiency, speed and performance.Compared with PPLX Online LLMs Primary source[1]Announcing Our Newest Model
  • Feature RetrievalThe online ids are described as search-enhanced versions of the chat ids. Primary source[1]Announcing Our Newest Model
  • Access API Primary source[1]

Lineage

Predecessors

Successors

Based on

Not derived from another model.

Variants and derived

None recorded.

Siblings

None recorded.

All ancestors

All descendants

Variants

sonar-small

Same dates as Sonar (February 2024).

  • Variant Inline variant in this record. Primary source[1] [2]

Also known as: sonar-small-chat, sonar-small-online

Differs in:

  • Context window: 16384 tokens Evidence not assessed [2]Perplexity Models table, Context Length
  • Parameters: 7B Evidence not assessed [2]Perplexity Models table, Parameter Count

sonar-medium

Same dates as Sonar (February 2024).

  • Variant Inline variant in this record. Primary source[1] [2]

Also known as: sonar-medium-chat, sonar-medium-online

Differs in:

  • Context window: 16384 tokens Evidence not assessed [2]Perplexity Models table, Context Length
  • Parameters: 8x7B Evidence not assessed [2]Perplexity Models table, Parameter Count

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