Perplexity unveils Teammates AI agents that work 24/7

Perplexity unveiled personal artificial intelligence agents called “Teammates” on Thursday. These digital assistants can handle day-to-day tasks with minimal oversight. The agents run on “Perplexity Computer,” a system that carries out multistep tasks in the cloud. The service is available only to “Max” subscribers. The plan costs 200 dollars (340 manats) per month or 2,000 dollars (3,400 manats) per year.

Released in February, “Perplexity Computer” created a separate temporary workspace for each task. When the task was completed, that workspace and the data in it were deleted. “Teammates” agents, however, operate continuously and can keep working on long-term, large-scale tasks. To do this, they use the user’s projects, saved information, files, connected services and previous sessions.

Users can assign each “Teammate” agent a separate role and task. The agents can carry out different tasks simultaneously, work together and manage one another’s work. When the workload increases, the system adds more agents to the process and distributes responsibilities among them. They work in the background 24/7, day and night. They send notifications only when a decision from the user is required.

Each agent has a separate section and chat area within “Perplexity Computer.” Users can monitor the work being done, ask for a status update, assign a new task and change the direction of the work. When necessary, users can also open the agent’s workspace and take control. An agent connected to a “Slack” channel accepts tasks from employees and responds to changes according to predefined rules.

According to Perplexity, the agents can handle marketing, sales, support and operations work. For example, they can categorize software bugs, check quality, monitor security and analyze data. The list also includes managing A/B tests, which compare the results of 2 different variants. The agents learn from feedback and mistakes. In the example shown, an advertising agent selected more cost-effective advertising materials, prepared a larger campaign and referred the contract renewal matter to the legal department.

“Teammates” is currently available on the web, and “iOS” support has also been announced. Reports differ on whether the “iOS” version is ready. Separate mobile and desktop apps are also said to be coming later. “Free” and “Pro” users must upgrade to the “Max” plan to use the agents. “OpenAI,” “Anthropic,” “Microsoft” and “xAI” are also developing similar work agents. Perplexity plans to run 100s of agents for each employee in the future.