Perplexity's Personal Computer arrived on Mac first because it was the best for locally deploying the agentic AI platform, the company has declared.
During Apple's quarterly financial results. CEO Kevan Parekh referenced to the growing use of the Mac as a base of operations for AI platforms. Parekh namechecked Perplexity as one such company, taking advantage of Apple Silicon and its unified memory structure.
Ahead of Apple's results release and analyst call, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas talked about the Mac during its Ask NYC enterprise and finance event. Specifically, how Personal Computer, its agentic AI platform that works with local files, was made for use on Mac.
Personal Computer is a version of Perplexity's Computer that uses multiple agents to perform tasks for the user. A key difference is that it handles tasks from a local computer, such as a Mac mini, instead of the cloud.
The local nature of the tool also means it has access to the user's files on the Mac mini, with it able to create and edit them depending on the task at hand.
Deployment capacity and interconnectedness
Deemed one of the best and most accessible ways to deploy Personal Computer, the Mac mini has been seized upon by users for the purpose of bringing Perplexity's AI system into their homes and offices. It's a combination of the cloud-based service and the local files owned by the user working in a single hybrid setup.
To Perplexity, the Mac mini is one of the "best ways to deploy" Personal Computer "at full capacity." With the nature of work spanning the iPhone and the Mac, Personal Computer "builds on the continuity Apple users already expect" to get their tasks done.
This continuity between the iPhone and Mac is important, especially since users can command Personal Computer to do things on their Mac from their iPhone.
Since its launch in March, Computer has managed to complete more than $2.8 billion in labor-equivalent work. In the case of Perplexity itself, the team dogfoods with Personal Computer, claiming to increase revenue by five times while increasing headcount by 34%.
The event also included a number of other announcements affecting Personal Computer. The experience is being brought to Microsoft Teams, with Personal Computer able to be messaged directly or pulled into a channel without leaving a conversation.
App connections and workflows
There's also a beta of Computer in Excel with a native side-panel, so the model and data can be viewed side-by-side in the spreadsheet tool. Perplexity is also working with 1Password to allow Computer to perform actions in password-protected tools, while preventing the model from seeing the user's credentials.
Workflows in Computer will help bundle prompts, context, and the output format for specific enterprise tasks into a single starting point. The idea is to reduce the amount of technical work a user has to get done before the AI platform gets going.
A library of workflows is being built up for commonly-run tasks, with there being more than 70 at this time. They can also be shared between team members, scheduled separately, customized, and also run asynchronously.
Personal Computer functionality is available to all Perplexity Pro, Max, and Enterprise subscribers using a Mac. Pricing starts from $17 per month for Pro, $167 per month for Max.
As for anyone wanting to pick up a Mac mini or a Mac Studio to enjoy this for themselves, they may have a little trouble doing so. During the call, it was revealed that Apple is seeing huge demand and supply constraints that will stick around for several months.
