Perplexity Computer for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know

What if I told you there's a new AI tool that just  doesn't answer your questions? It actually does   the work for you. And it's not just with one AI  model, but with 19 different AI models all working   together at the same time. And that's exactly what  Perplexity just launched. It's called Perplexity   Computer. And it's not a physical computer. It's  a cloud-based AI system that can research, design,   code, build apps, create presentations, and manage  entire projects all from a single prompt. Now,   I know that sounds like a lot, and honestly,  it is. But don't worry. In this video,   I'm going to break it all down step by  step. I'll show you exactly what it is,   how to get started, and I'll walk you through  some real prompts so you can see it in action.    Whether you're brand new to AI or you've been  using tools like ChatgBT and Claude, this one   is worth paying attention to. My name is Jamie  and welcome to Teachers Tech. Let's get into it.

Okay, let's start with the basics. What  exactly is Perplexity Computer? If you're   already familiar with Perplexity, you know,  it started as an AI powered search engine,   kind of like Google. But instead of giving you  a list of links, it gives you direct answers   with sources. Then they added features like deep  research labs in their comment browser. Perplexity   computer is the next evolution. Think of it as  a digital co-worker. You describe what you want   done and the end result and the computer breaks  that down into task, assigns each task to the   best AI model for the job and runs everything  automatically. It can work in the background   for hours and even run for ongoing projects over  weeks and months. Here's what makes this different   from chat GBT or Claude. Instead of relying on a  single AI model, Perplexity Computer orchestrates   19 different models. Let me show you what I mean.   Claude Opus 4. 6, Six, the core reasoning engine,   the brain that coordinates everything. Gemini  handles deep research and creates sub aents.    Chad GPT 5. 2 great for long context recall and  broad web searches. Grock used for speed and   lighter quick task. Nano banana image generation.   VO3. 1 video generation. So when you give computer   a project, it figures out which model is the  best for each piece of the work. Need research,   it picks one model. need code, another need  design. A third, you don't have to switch   between different AI tools anymore. Computer  handles all the routing automatically. Here's   the key difference I want you to understand. With  a regular AI chatbot, you type a message, you get   a response, then you type another message. It's a  back and forth conversation. Perplexity computer   works differently. You describe the outcome you  want and it plans the entire workflow up front.    It creates sub aents. Think of them like mini AI  assistants. and runs them in parallel. Multiple   things happen at the same time, not one after  another. And here's the really cool part. It all   runs in the cloud in a safe sandbox environment.   So unlike some other AI agent tools, it's not   touching any of your local files on your computer  directly. That's a big deal for security. Now,

let me quickly cover how to actually access this  and what it costs because I want to be upfront   with you. As of right now, Perplexity Computer is  available exclusively on the Perplexity Max plan,   which is $200 per month. I know that's not cheap.   This is definitely positioned as a power user and   professional tool. Perplexity has said they plan  to roll it out to pro subscribers and enterprise   users in the future, but right now it's Max only.   The Max plan includes 10,000 credits per month for   computer task, and right now there's a limited  time bonus of 20,000 additional credits when you   sign up. Those bonus credits expire after  30 days though, so keep that in mind. Now,   even if you're not ready to commit to the max  plan, I still think it's worth understanding what   computer can do because this is the direction AI  is heading. And if you're on the free or pro plan,   you can still use Perplexity's other great  features like search, deep research, and labs.

All right, let me show you around the interface  so you know where everything is. Right now,   I'm just in the normal search, but you can see  in the top lefthand corner, I can just click on   computer. This is where we're going to enter in  our task. And over here on the side, you can see   that we'll have our task, our files, connectors.   So, this will connect your apps and services. So,   computer can access and act your data. This  is a great feature. So, you you'll be able   to connect something like Google Drive. Then,  it can go into certain files, use those files,   and act on your behalf. Down here, we have live  example. So, Perplexity also has this stream of   real computer tasks running at perplexity. ai.   So, it's a great way to see what other people   are building and get ideas. Okay, this is the part  I'm most excited about. Let me show you some real

prompts you can use. I've organized these from  simple to more complex so you can follow along.    Let's start with something really practical.   Say you need to research a topic thoroughly,   maybe for a lesson plan, a presentation, or a  report. Instead of spending hours searching and   compiling, you can give the computer the whole  job. So, I'm going to say this. Research the   current state of AI in K to2 education. Include  what tools teachers are actually using in the   classroom in 2026. What the research says about  the effectiveness and concerns or challenges   and merging trends. Create a comprehensive report  with sections, key findings, and source citations.    Format it as clean document I can share with  colleagues. Let's go ahead and send this. I can see it found some history on me. I was  surprised that when it looked back and was taking   my that context into this research. Now, this task  didn't take very long and I knew it wouldn't. So,   it uh went through it had parallel research across  all four topics here. AI effectiveness in K to2   school concerns and challenges, emerging trends.   Then all four research tracks are complete. Uh let   me read through the findings and compile them into  a PDF report. And it went through everything. And   here is the report at the end. It's a 16page  PDF uh covering the current state of AI in K   to2 education where there's an executive summary,  everything in it, policy landscape. So if I click   on it, you can see it's right here. I'll just  scroll through this to give you an idea of how it   was put together. It's a nice looking report here.   And if I want it as a PDF, I can just go up top,   download as a PDF or export PDF to drive. Here's  one that really shows off what Perplexity Computer

can do. Let's ask it to build something visual  and interactive. So, this is going to be my   prompt. Create an interactive dashboard that  compares the top 10 AI tools of 2026. You can   see all the different ones I listed there. Show a  comparison of their pricing tiers, key features,   and what each is best at. Include interactive  charts and recommendations matrix. Deploy it as a   simple web page. I can share. I can see it loading  up the skills. So, loading skill website building,   loading skill, research assistant, setting up  the task list, running these in parallel. It   was interesting watching it work from the research  and when it started building the app right here,   it would take a screenshot of it and then it would  make any corrections needed and then would take   another uh screenshot of the app and making sure  everything was working. So, it did this back and   forth a few different times um with the dashboard,  testing everything out, and then it created all   the files. And down here is the app. Here's a  write up, but I'm just going to click on the app   here. And right away, you can see it's here. Here,  I'm just going to go to the uh full screen and you   should be able to see it here. I do have I didn't  ask for light or dark mode, but they have it here.    So, if you're just thinking about creating  information and sharing information, this was   all put together uh in this and I can just share  from here. So, here's an example. If I go ahead   and click share, and you can see anyone with the  link or I could go private, but I could copy the   link. And I'll bring a another uh browser window  in here. And I'm just going to paste the link in.    And so you can see that this is a link that you  could share with somebody else. So you could do   all this research. And this could be a great way  for a presentation. If you were showing something   and you just had to have the link with you, then  you'd have all these numbers uh on here that you   can kind of go through in a nice easy way. Now,  let's try something really relevant for anyone

that creates content. I'm going to give Perplexity  Computer a multi-step content project. And this is   what I'm going to ask. I run an educational  technology YouTube channel. Create a content   plan for the next four weeks with two videos  per week. For each video, provide a compelling   title optimized for YouTube search, a thumbnail,  concept description, five key talking points, and   a list of any tools resources I should feature.   Focus the topic on AI tools that beginners can   start using today. Also create a one-page  PDF summary I can print and pin to my wall.    Okay. So, again, it searched my history, my  what it knows about me being a YouTuber. It   went through. I can kind of get an idea with all  different places it searched. It's looking 2026,   so that's good. They're not looking at old  documents with AI. We want them to be looking at   2025. That's too old already. Um, here's the PDF  at the end. I'll just click on it and open this   up. And let's see. So, we have our week one, week  two, week three, week four. We have two videos for   each. We have a title, our thumbnail, and five  points. Uh, it's not my normal workflow when I   do research. Uh, I'd probably break things down a  lot uh more detailed when I'm doing a search about   a specific topic, but I just wanted to see what  it would produce. It definitely gives some ideas   um about with the prompts and different things  about this. And I kind of like where it has the   key points. This only took me a matter of two or  three minutes for it to run through and create   this. So, as something to generate ideas, I love  it. I probably would have to go back and for my   personal workflow, I would probably use Perplexi  uh computer a little bit differently than just   giving it a one-off prompt, probably more of a  continuous research about different topics. Now,

for this next one, I want to see how Perplexity  Computer can actually use tools or build an app.    So, I'm going to give it a prompt to build this.   Build a simple web app that helps me track monthly   subscriptions because you know what a pain those  are to keep track of. I want to add each service   name and price. See total monthly cost, a yearly  projection, a pie chart showing where my money   goes. So, I'm going to send this off. And this is  just to give context about you could change this   to whatever. No coding will be needed to do this.   It's going to go out and do everything for you.    Well, that took about maybe 10 minutes in total.   Let's check out the app that we have here. We'll   just click on it. We'll go to full screen again. I  can see that we have our dark or light mode here.    And if I go put in, we'll just do an a test here.   So, if I go and type in Netflix here, we'll say   I don't even know how much it is a month. We'll  go 15 here. And we'll click add. So, as soon as   that goes in, it starts to show the yearly the pie  chart here. Let's add another one. Let's go with   the prime. I don't know how much any of these  are, but we'll add. Okay. So, you can see how   it's changing um up here as I enter more and more  already. It makes me want to cancel a few of these   when you start adding up this yearly projection  here. So, I can What happens if I hit X here?    Just takes it away. So, everything works very  well. I can share this out with anybody. I'd like   to test it out on mobile. Should work on mobile.   It said it would be responsive to that, too. So,   that was a no coding. The app there with just that  simple prompt and uh perplexity computer brought   it back to us. All right, let's try one last demo.   And this one, let's go with something that would

be a little bit more long-term in project. So,  let's try set up a weekly AI news briefing for   me. Every week, scan the latest developments in  AI for education and content creation. Compile   the top five most important stories with briefing  summaries and why they matter. Include the links   to the original sources. Format each briefing as  a clean, scannable document. Let's send this off.    All right. So, out of all the demos that I showed  you today, this is actually probably one I would   use the most because I do like perplexity for  research and search. So, what they set up here,   so your weekly AI news briefing is set up. Here's  what to expect. So, every Monday at 8 a. m. my   time, I'm going to get a clean PDF delivered  right here covering the top five stories from   the past week in AI for education and context  creation. I like this. This will probably be   better for me to look what's being consistently  uh just given to me this way than even for them   to create me titles and everything for my YouTube  video. This is what I generally go from are these   type of uh news articles that I see. So, what is  prioritized the new tool launches, major updates,   funding acquisitions, and edte. Now, I could have  uh crafted my prompt a little bit differently to   focus on different things because I want it to be  bigger than just edte as well, but this would be   an interesting file. Maybe I'll start another one  that makes it more specific on a different area of   AI as well. Here are five different prompts that  we use today. You can see the different files.    If I click on files over here, gives me easy  access to all the things we created from the   generated app to PDF documents. The other thing  I just want to bring your attention to again is   connectors right here. Uh this uh if you add  them, this gives another strength to perplex   the computer to go into something like your  Google Drive, maybe connect with your notion,   the notes you've taken or to slack. So where  it can work with that information and just make   everything more streamlined. Now I'm not going to  leave quite yet. I have some tips I want to share   with you about using perplexity computer. Tip one,  describe the outcome, not the steps. Instead of

telling it how to do something step by step, tell  it what you want the final result to look like.    Computer is designed to figure out the how on  its own. Tip two, be specific about the format   and deliverables. Don't just say research this  topic. Say create a report with sections, charts,   and citations or build a web app or generate  a PDF. The more specific you are about what   you want delivered, the better the output. Tip  three, ask for cross referencing and analysis.    When a computer strength is comparing sources,  ask things like, "What do these sources disagree   on? " or "Which source is the most credible and  why? " You'll get a much richer result. Tip four,   request visual outputs. Instead of plain text,  ask for charts, timelines, interactive dashboards,   or infographics. computer can route these tasks  to specialized models that are great at visual   outputs. Tip five, keep an eye on your credits.   Complex tasks use more credits than simple ones.    Start with smaller tasks to get a feel for the  credit loss, then scale up as you get comfortable.

So, that's perplexity computer. Now, is the $200  per month price tag worth it? That really depends   on your use case. If you're a professional, a  business owner, or power user who spends every   week on research and project work, this could  genuinely save you a significant amount of time.    For casual users, you might want to wait until  it comes to the pro plan. Either way, this is a   glimpse of where AI is heading. We're moving from  the chat bots that answer questions to agents that   do the actual work, and that's pretty exciting.   Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one.