By The Analyst
Publication Date: 2026-10-21 00:58:00
Perplexity’s AI agent, Computer, can now run entirely on a Mac. The fully local mode arrived in the Perplexity Mac app on 20th October 2026 for subscribers on the Pro, Max and Enterprise plans. In it, both the AI model and the agent directing the task run on your computer, and your files don’t go to Perplexity’s servers.
Computer is Perplexity’s agent that lets you describe a job, such as sorting your email or updating a spreadsheet, and it breaks the job into tasks and carries them out. When we listed the AI tools worth knowing in 2026 in June, Perplexity was there as an answer engine with a multi-step mode of its own.
Computer has been moving off the cloud all year. It launched in February for Max subscribers, handing tasks to several AI models from other companies, all working in Perplexity’s own computing environment. In May came Personal Computer, a Mac app that let it work with your local files and native apps. Then in September, Hybrid Compute split the work, keeping private files with a model on the Mac while cloud models did the research and reasoning.
This is the second fully local version of Computer. In August, Perplexity released Portable Computer for NVIDIA’s DGX Spark, a compact Linux AI computer with 128 GB of memory. Far more people own Macs, and whether yours can run the new mode comes down mostly to memory.
What runs on your Mac
You start by downloading one of two models through the app. The first is Qwen 3.6 from Alibaba, a family of models…
