What happened
At its Ask 2026 developer conference, Perplexity unveiled "Personal Computer" — software that runs continuously on a dedicated Mac mini, giving Perplexity's cloud-based AI agent persistent access to local files, apps, and sessions. The AI processing runs on Perplexity's servers while the local agent handles file access. All sensitive actions require user approval, every session generates an audit trail, and there's an emergency kill switch. Pricing is approximately $200/month for Max subscribers.
Why it matters
This is the first major AI company to ship a "dedicated device" paradigm for AI agents — the idea that your AI assistant deserves its own always-on computer rather than sharing your primary machine. It's a bet that agents need persistent state, continuous access, and separation from your daily workflow to be truly useful. The security model (cloud processing + local access + mandatory approval) attempts to thread the needle between capability and trust. Whether users will pay $200/month plus a Mac mini for this remains the open question.
Who should pay attention
Enterprise teams exploring always-on AI assistants, macOS power users interested in agent-driven automation, product designers thinking about AI-first hardware paradigms, and anyone comparing Perplexity's cloud-hybrid approach against OpenClaw's fully local model.