Perplexity Unveils Personal Computer AI Agent for Mac Mini

Perplexity, the AI search startup, unveiled Personal Computer on Wednesday, a new always-on AI agent designed to run continuously on users' Mac minis, granting it access to local files and applications to perform tasks autonomously. The announcement, made at the company's Ask 2026 developer conference, positions the tool as a personalized extension of Perplexity's existing chatbot, enabling it to function as a 24/7 digital assistant without constant human oversight.

Personal Computer builds directly on Perplexity's cloud-based agent system, known as Perplexity Computer, which launched last month. That earlier tool harnesses multiple AI models to handle complex objectives, such as creating educational guides or podcasts, by breaking them into subtasks. The new desktop version extends this capability to users' personal setups, allowing the agent to interact with desktop sessions, open apps, and manipulate files on a Mac mini. Users describe broad goals in natural language, and the system orchestrates the work in a hybrid environment: AI reasoning and orchestration occur in the cloud, while local execution happens on the user's hardware.

The platform requires a dedicated Mac mini,...