Perplexity launches Teammates, always-on AI agents that own ongoing work

Perplexity has launched Teammates, AI agents meant to own a piece of ongoing work instead of answering one prompt at a time. The feature went live on the web for Perplexity Max subscribers, with an iOS version promised soon. As The Verge notes, Max costs $200 a month, which makes this a pricier entry ticket than rival offerings.

How Teammates work

Each teammate runs on top of Perplexity Computer, the company’s agent system that already works with a user’s tools and files. A teammate is given a name, a job description and access to plugins such as Slack, GitHub or Gmail. It then plans the work, splits it into Computer sessions and reports back with results for review.

The key difference from a regular chatbot is memory and initiative. According to Perplexity, a teammate keeps project goals, past tasks and shared files between runs, and it can react on its own when something changes. The company’s examples include:

• a sales agent that spots a regular customer who has stopped ordering and prepares an offer;
• a support agent that sums up yesterday’s complaints and drafts replies;
• an operations agent that chases missing paperwork once a deadline is 72 hours away.

Teammates can also hand tasks to each other, for example one finds bugs on a website and another prepares fixes. Colleagues can add a teammate to a Slack channel and assign it work there.

Safety and the bigger picture

Each agent runs in its own isolated environment with separate browser sessions, and saved credentials are encrypted. Users can review the output, take over the desktop or redirect an agent mid-task.

The launch puts Perplexity in direct competition with OpenAI’s Dots and Anthropic’s Claude Duet, which also run long, always-on work agents. CEO Aravind Srinivas set an ambitious goal on X: “Over time, we envision every org having hundreds of teammates working for each person.”

Reported by Perplexity, The Verge. Compiled with AI tools.