Perplexity builds "Personal Computer" based on Mac mini
Perplexity Computer is the name of Perplexity's personal assistant. It is now coming to Mac in the OpenClaw style. There is currently a waiting list.
Perplexity Personal Computer: Benefit from the OpenClaw hype?
(Image: Perplexity)
Perplexity AI is bringing a variant of the Perplexity Computer, which has so far run sandboxed on the AI company's servers, into the home network: With the "Personal Computer" for which a Mac mini is needed, as Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas wrote on X, users should be able to control their computer via prompt. The whole thing is reminiscent of OpenClaw (alias Clawdbot alias Moltbot), whereby the entire GUI is to be adopted here – while one communicates with the agentic chatbot, whose developers now work for OpenAI, via Telegram, WhatsApp, command line and co. A Mac mini hype also developed around OpenClaw: Apple's smallest and cheapest desktop was reportedly temporarily sold out in Silicon Valley or China.
Mac mini remotely controlled
Perplexity Computer can currently handle coding tasks with 19 different AI models from various providers, surf the web agentically, and much more – a dedicated computer instance is opened in Perplexity's data center, similar to what is known from Anthropic's Claude-Computer-Use. Perplexity Computer is said to be smart enough to select the correct model for the respective task. In practice, such a workflow can run for hours, weeks, or even months. Examples given by Perplexity include price monitoring of a product or creating stock analyses.
Videos by heise
In a video about Personal Computer, Perplexity shows, among other things, how the agentic AI system, which places an "Ask me anything" input bar on the desktop, compiles slides for a presentation (including follow-up questions) or prepares an email to colleagues. A screen shows that Personal Computer can control Finder, the Messages app, Slack, or the Notes app, among others. Answers land in a dedicated output interface.
Max subscription required, but no flat rate
According to Perplexity, Personal Computer – similar to OpenClaw – can also be controlled remotely. "It is a permanent digital proxy for you. It is in a secure environment and can be controlled from any device and anywhere." The company wants to merge local applications with Perplexity Computer. The Mac mini is intended to run permanently. There should also be a kill switch, and thanks to logging, every action has a "full audit trail". Personal Computer never sleeps, according to Srinivas. "Today, AI is the computer. It coordinates models, reads the internet, uses your tools, writes the code, and does the work."
Personal Computer is not cheap: According to the company, it is only available to users of the Perplexity Max subscription, which costs 167 US dollars per month. It includes 10.000 "Compute Credits". Perplexity Computer indicates when these are consumed. How much usage this amounts to is unclear. The security aspects, similar to OpenClaw, also need to be reviewed first. Perplexity has opened a waiting list that can be joined.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
