Perplexity Launches Autonomous AI
AI search company Perplexity has introduced "Perplexity Computer," a multi-model AI system capable of autonomously creating and executing entire digital workflows. The product launch marks a move toward more agentic AI that can take complex actions, not just analyze information.
Perplexity Computer functions as an orchestration platform, not a single AI. It breaks a user's goal into subtasks and assigns them to a team of 19 specialized AI models, using models like Claude Opus 4.6 for reasoning, Gemini for deep research, and Nano Banana for image generation. The San Francisco-based company was founded in August 2022 by CEO Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. Srinivas, a graduate of IIT Madras and UC Berkeley, previously worked as a research scientist at OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind. Investor confidence has grown rapidly, with Perplexity's valuation jumping from $520 million in January 2024 to $20 billion by September 2025. The company has raised over $1.5 billion in total funding from backers including Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. This move into autonomous agents places Perplexity in a competitive field with major players like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, all of whom are developing their own agentic AI systems. The broader trend reflects a significant shift from AI as an information tool to a digital collaborator that can execute complex tasks. Unlike some open-source AI agents that run locally on a user's machine, Perplexity Computer is designed with safety checkpoints. Each task runs in an isolated cloud environment, and the system requires explicit user approval for high-stakes actions.
