Perplexity’s Personal Computer lets AI agents access your Mac mini’s files

Perplexity is bringing its AI closer to its users, with a new Personal Computer that combines its agentic AI platform with a Mac mini’s local applications. This may be too much AI for some people.

At the end of February, Perplexity rolled out Perplexity Computer, a so-called digital worker that uses the same software stack and other sub-agents just like a person would. That concept has now been expanded to run more locally to the user.

Announced via a meandering and navel-gazing X post by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, the Personal Computer is a version of Perplexity Computer that handles things on a nearby computer. Srinivas directly name-checks the Mac mini as a platform it could run on, with the entire thing able to merge both the work of Perplexity Computer and a user’s local files.

This is a concept that may seem familiar to AI observers, and follows after a wave of popularity for Apple’s compact Mac.

Perplexing agents

Perplexity Computer is, effectively, an AI that is a go-between for other AIs. Instead of issuing specific instructions to multiple AIs, you provide the general outcome of the task to Perplexity Computer.

Perplexity Computer then breaks down the task into subtasks, which it then provides to sub-agents to do the actual work. In effect, you’re talking to a project manager, who then delegates the task to other AIs, before combining the results and presenting them to you.

The managing AI has a lot more freedom in how it orders…