Perplexity launches Teammates, always-on agents for Max subscribers

Perplexity has launched Teammates, a class of AI agents aimed at ongoing work rather than one-off tasks, available first on the web to Perplexity Max subscribers.

The company already sells agentic tools under the Computer name. Teammates are pitched differently: agents built around a user's context and work history, designed for projects that run over days rather than single requests.

Each Teammate lives in its own thread inside Perplexity and stays permanently available, able to work around the clock while the user is away from a computer. Perplexity describes them as proactive by design, running on automations and notifying the user when they need input or have progress to report.

They can be steered in natural language at any time, can hand work to other Teammates on complex jobs, and can message real colleagues through Slack, which matters for teams already coordinating there.

PCMag cites examples including an Ads Manager, an Engineer, a QA Engineer and a Legal Research Assistant. In the legal example, the agent reads a contract, compares its terms with other documents, flags problems and drafts a response to address them.

Underneath, Perplexity says the system uses multi-agent orchestration, full desktop and browser use, and proactive monitoring — the ingredients that separate an agent which actually acts from one that only chats.

Access is tied to Perplexity Max, which costs $200 a month or $2,000 a year. Teammates are free for Max subscribers during what the company calls a promotional period, after which running them will require an undisclosed number of credits.

The mobile apps are still to come. The pricing design is the part worth watching: it moves a subscription product toward usage-based billing, and how credits are priced will decide whether always-on agents become a staple of desk work or a premium experiment.