Perplexity brings Personal Computer AI agent to Windows, targeting enterprise productivity

Perplexity's Personal Computer turns Windows PCs into AI agents

Perplexity has expanded its agentic Personal Computer tool to Windows, allowing computers running the world's most popular OS to be used as a locally run AI system. Like the Mac version that Perplexity launched in April, Personal Computer for Windows operates like a "general-purpose digital worker" that can access local files and apps to perform actions on your behalf, such as creating documents and updating spreadsheets. This launch builds on Personal Computer integrations that Perplexity launched for Microsoft's 365 workspace apps and Teams virtual meeting software in May. Personal Computer for Windows aims to bridge the remaining gap by operating directly inside the Windows environment, Perplexity said in its press release, noting that enterprise work the agentic tool is designed for typically occurs locally on Windows devices "out of AI's reach." "Now Microsoft users can ask Computer to work across their local files, Microsoft Office 365, and the web in one place," Perplexity said. "It's built for the often messy way enterprise work gets done on local machines." Personal Computer for Windows is rolling out to paying Max and Enterprise Max users today, on subscription tiers that start from $200 per month. Perplexity says the tool doesn't train on company data, and that Personal Computer for Windows always notifies users before performing sensitive actions like sending emails and deleting files.

Perplexity brings its Personal Computer AI agent to Windows

Perplexity AI Inc. today released a Windows version of Personal Computer, expanding its agentic automation software beyond the original Macintosh platform and making it available to more than 1 billion Windows devices. First released in April, Personal Computer software acts as a general-purpose digital worker that can access authorized files and applications on a user's computer. Users can ask it to create or edit Word documents, update Excel spreadsheets, organize files, conduct online research and complete workflows involving multiple applications. Personal Computer is intended to overcome the inability of many AI assistants to work with information stored locally or operate across the collection of applications that employees use. The Windows version can combine local files and applications with information from Microsoft 365 and websites, allowing users to manage the work through a single conversational interface. "It's built for the often messy way enterprise work gets done on local machines," the company wrote on its blog. Perplexity said the Windows release strengthens the company's strategy to establish itself as an enterprise productivity platform rather than solely an AI-powered search provider. The company is best known for its flagship search product, which provides rich answers from web searches in paragraph form, including citations. Perplexity is particularly focused on the desktop. A year ago, it introduced a browser aimed at streamlining online research. Last August it made an audacious bid to buy the Chrome browser from Google LLC. The desktop service uses a hybrid architecture rather than depending entirely on local AI processing, drawing on Perplexity's cloud infrastructure when more computing power is required. Acknowledging that security and control are important considerations because the software can interact with potentially sensitive data and take actions on a user's behalf, Perplexity said company data will not be used to train its AI models. The system also notifies users and requests approval before performing sensitive or difficult-to-reverse actions, such as sending email or deleting files. Activities are logged so users can review what the agent has done. The launch puts Perplexity more directly in competition with Microsoft Corp., which is incorporating Copilot and AI agents throughout Windows and its productivity applications. While Microsoft clearly enjoys and advantage from owning both Windows and Microsoft 365, Perplexity is betting that an assistant capable of coordinating work across local files, cloud services and the web will appeal to users seeking an alternative. The Windows edition is rolling out initially to subscribers of Perplexity's Max and Enterprise Max plans, which start at $200 per month.