I've been an open critic of Perplexity recently. I was once a massive fan and used its browser, Comet, as my daily driver (and only ever had good things to say about it). However, I canceled my subscription a few months ago when the company was caught quietly rerouting Pro users to cheaper, less capable models while the interface kept claiming the premium model was running.

Though the company addressed that "bug," I've struggled to trust it since. So trust me when I say it took something genuinely impressive to bring me back to the table. Perplexity Computer, the company's answer to OpenClaw, is exactly that.

What is Perplexity Computer?

Agentic AI, but with 19 brains instead of one

Perplexity announced Perplexity Computer on 25th February 2026, describing it as "the first fully multi-model orchestration UI designed to complete entire workflows." Now, that does sound a tad bit buzzwordy. So, let's break it down a bit.

You know how most AI tools can already go beyond just answering questions by doing things on your behalf? Perplexity Computer takes that a step further. The idea is that you give it an end goal, and it handles the entire workflow from start to finish without you needing to babysit every step. At this stage, a question you might have (I did, too) is — isn't what you described simply agentic AI? Well, yes and no. Agentic AI is what gives a model the autonomy to use tools on your behalf and take actions to reach a specific goal. It's the underlying engine and technology powering the system.

OpenAI has Operator. Anthropic has Claude with Cowork and Claude Code. Google has its own takes. They all let you hand off multi-step tasks to an AI that can browse, write, code, and click through things on your behalf. So, what's different about Perplexity Computer? It's the multi-model bit. Most agentic AI tools today are tied to a single model, including all the ones I just name-dropped above. When you use Claude, you're working with Anthropic's models exclusively. When you use ChatGPT's Operator, you're working with GPT.

Perplexity Computer, though, has access to 19 different AI models and decides which one to use for each subtask. If you want an image generated, it'll automatically route to an image model. If you want to code, it'll probably reroute to one of Anthropic's models. With Computer, you describe the end goal, it breaks the work into a dependency graph of subtasks, spins up specialized sub-agents for each one, and keeps going until everything's done.

How does Perplexity Computer compare to OpenClaw?

Cloud convenience vs. local control

Now, if you've been following the AI agent space, you've surely heard of OpenClaw. If not, OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent that you can self-host locally on your own machine. Similar to Perplexity Computer, it isn't locked into a single model. Instead, you manually plug in whichever AI model you want to use and bring your own API keys.

From there, it gets full access to your file system, terminal, and browser. You can also connect it to a messaging app like WhatsApp or Telegram, and it essentially becomes a 24/7 personal assistant you can text. Need it to clear your inbox, check you in for a flight, or run a script at 3 AM? Just message it.

It's powerful stuff, but it requires technical know-how to set up and run safely. The security risks of OpenClaw are also very real, and my colleague Adam Conway explained them in depth. That said, Perplexity Computer runs entirely in the cloud through a browser and doesn't require any complex setup. Given that it works on the cloud, it also means tasks keep running even when your computer is turned off. You can kick off a workflow, close your laptop, and come back to a finished result.

So, what can Perplexity Computer actually do?

Real tasks, real results

Like I mentioned above, there's no complex setup required with Perplexity Computer. You simply log in, switch to the Computer mode, and tell it what you want done. To get a real sense of what Computer is capable of, I threw four very different tasks at it and let it run.

Time-blocking my calendar

Something I do every Sunday is time-block my calendar. It's something I simply need to do to function, and it's a task that often takes a fair bit of manual work. For some context, most of my work-related tasks are assigned on Asana at the end of every work week. I use Google Calendar (and Google Tasks) for my own personal planning, which means I usually have to manually go through my Asana tasks and then block them out across my week.

I also use Notion to organize my entire life otherwise. It's where I keep track of things like university deadlines and work projects. Once tasks are in Google Tasks, I typically add them manually to my Notion dashboard as well, where I track them more in depth.

Now, if you can't tell already, this is a tedious process. Every Sunday, I juggle three different apps and copy-paste things from one place to another. It's not a difficult task per se, but it's very repetitive and eats a solid chunk of time. I've been using Reclaim, an AI-assisted scheduling tool, to help with parts of this. But even then, I still have to manually feed it the right information, move things between apps myself, and make sure everything lines up across Asana, Google Calendar, and Notion. It time-blocks well, but doesn't go and pull my tasks from Asana on its own, and it certainly isn't going to update my Notion dashboard for me.

I asked Perplexity Computer to take over this entire process. I told it to go through my Asana tasks for the upcoming week, check my Google Calendar for existing commitments, and time-block the tasks in my Calendar while syncing them to Google Tasks. Initially, the tool assumed it would take me eight hours to write each article and blocked out eight hours for each one.I then explicitly told it that it takes me approximately three hours to write a piece, and to also take my university classes into account. I also mentioned my working hours, and it then time-blocked everything efficiently across my schedule.

I then asked it to add everything to my Notion dashboard (which is custom-built and divided into three sections: Personal, Work, and University). Computer did it perfectly, populating each section with the right tasks, deadlines, and details, so that everything was instantly organized and aligned with my calendar.

Build a portfolio website

The next thing I asked Perplexity Computer to do was find all it could about me. Once it did (the research was far more in-depth than any other AI tool, which is what Perplexity excels at), I asked it to create a portfolio for me. I asked it to integrate an AI chatbot that would let a reader search through my work, and have all my articles clearly organized by topic, date, and publication.

I was very thorough with my prompt, asked Perplexity to ask me clarifying questions, and it then divided the task into multiple sub-agents in front of me. Gemini 3 Flash handled most of the content aggregation, pulling in my articles, project details, and relevant metadata, while Claude Opus 4.6 handled the coding. Within around ten minutes, the portfolio was ready, and it was genuinely impressive.

Creating a custom Chrome extension

Next, I asked Computer to build me a Chrome extension. I have a very specific workflow for spotting news stories, and I've been wanting to create an extension to flag when something relevant to my coverage area is announced. This is a niche, personal tool that you wouldn't find a pre-built solution for. So, I described exactly what I wanted and let it run. The core functionality worked out of the box, which is more than I can say for some extensions I've tried building myself.

Breaking down my Instagram content with AI

Finally, I pointed it at my Instagram. I've been creating a bunch of tech content lately, and leveraging AI to analyze my insights and come up with content ideas based on patterns is something I've been doing. I have a Claude project set up where I manually copy and paste previous scripts I've created in Google Docs along with screenshots of my Instagram analytics, and then ask it to spot patterns and suggest ideas.

It works well enough, but the operative word there is "manually." I pull the screenshots, copy the scripts, and feed everything into the project each time. With Perplexity Computer, I just told it what I wanted to do. Funnily enough, it wasn't connected to my Instagram, but what the tool did was genuinely impressive.

It found my Instagram account (despite the fact that I hadn't explicitly mentioned it), and found my recent videos. It then pulled the scripts of my videos by reading the on-screen captions directly from the posts, figured out the topics and angles I'd been covering, and cross-referenced that with broader trends in tech content on the platform.

It couldn't access my private analytics since it wasn't actually connected to my account. But even without that, it managed to identify which types of content seemed to be resonating based on what it could see publicly, spotted patterns in my topics and scripting style, and came back with content ideas that were clearly tailored to what I'd been doing, along with tips for future videos.

There's a huge con, though

While Perplexity Computer has its drawbacks, the biggest one by far is the price. It's locked behind Perplexity's Max tier at $200 per month. Fortunately, the company has confirmed that it will roll out to Pro and Enterprise subscribers in the coming weeks.