By Roman Aglaganov
Perplexity has launched a fully local mode for Computer, its AI agent, on the Mac. Announced on 20 October, it runs the AI model, the agent directing the task and the task itself on the computer, without sending personal data to the cloud.
What it can do
With permission, Computer works across local files and Mac apps including Notes, Messages, Mail and Numbers. Perplexity’s example: read a project’s to-do list in Notes, check a teammate’s budget request in Messages, pull spending figures from a spreadsheet, then prepare a status update and send a meeting invitation. Code and tools run in isolated sandboxes.
If a task needs current information, web browsing or connected online apps, you can let it escalate to the cloud, where it can call on more than 15 frontier models. Perplexity’s existing Hybrid Compute mode, launched in September, still splits tasks between the cloud and the Mac.
The catch
Running a capable model locally takes memory. Perplexity recommends 36 GB or more of unified memory, more than many Macs have; its own examples are the new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro chips. The local mode launches with two models, Alibaba’s Qwen 3.6 and PPLX Pro, Perplexity’s own post-trained version of Qwen. It is available to Pro, Max and Enterprise subscribers in the Perplexity Mac app.
Why it matters
Agents are most useful when they can see your files and messages, which is exactly what makes people nervous about them. Running everything on the device answers that, at the cost of a smaller model and a more expensive computer. As local models improve, more AI work is likely to move onto the machines people already own.
