Perplexity Teammates: Always-On AI Agents for Work

Published: November 6, 20266 min readBy the CreatorSprout team

Launch coverage based on Perplexity’s announcement and reporting from The Verge, Digital Trends and other outlets on November 5-6, 2026, we have not tested Teammates hands-on, and no independent performance results exist yet. Pricing and availability details below are as reported at launch; verify at checkout before subscribing. No affiliate links in this article.

The shift from chatbot to coworker is now the whole AI industry’s bet. OpenAI launched its always-on Dots agents at Dev Day, Anthropic has Claude Duet, and on November 5 Perplexity joined them with Teammates. CEO Aravind Srinivas announced it on X that afternoon, describing the change as moving from “writing prompts in a session to giving high-level goals.” The pitch is simple: stop re-explaining the job every morning, and let the agent keep the job.

What Teammates are

Teammates are persistent, named AI agents that own ongoing work. Instead of a chat thread you open, prompt and abandon, you give a teammate a role and a high-level goal, and it keeps working on that responsibility, checking for new items, following up, and reporting back. Perplexity suggests roles such as On-call Engineer, Legal Research Assistant and Storefront Manager, and says agents can take on different jobs at the same time in a shared workspace.

The difference from a normal agent is continuity. A teammate retains its project goals, task history and shared files across runs, and presents results for review, according to Perplexity’s launch description. A follow-up on a missing item before a deadline becomes an ongoing assignment rather than a fresh request each time. That only works if context survives between sessions, which is exactly what Teammates are built to do.

Srinivas says Perplexity already runs this internally: about 10,000 teammates in the company’s own workspace in the last 30 days, which he described as 20 times its headcount, with about 1,000 active on November 4. That is a company talking about its own dogfooding, not an independent measurement, but it does tell you Perplexity is betting its own workflows on the product.

How they work: Computer, memory and separate desktops

Teammates sit on top of Perplexity Computer, the multi-model agent system Perplexity launched in February 2026. Computer breaks a project into smaller tasks, picks among 19 AI models for each task, and delegates work to specialized agents. Teammates add persistent memory, proactive monitoring and communication between agents to that system.

Each teammate inherits what you already have in Computer, your existing projects, skills, plugins, memory and tool permissions, rather than starting from an empty conversation. Each one also gets its own thread in the Perplexity app, where you can follow its progress and redirect it.

Where the work happens matters too. Each teammate runs in its own isolated desktop and browser, with independent sessions and cookies, so agents do not trip over each other’s logins. Perplexity says saved credentials are encrypted and entered securely, and that you can inspect an agent’s desktop and take over while it works. Plugins and skills operate with the permissions available to the account, while project permissions are set separately. In other words: the agent has its own desk, not a shared one.

Slack: your agents in the team chat

The most immediately practical piece of the launch is Slack. Teammates can watch selected Slack channels for new requests, pass work among themselves, and message colleagues, so a handoff can arrive as a Slack message rather than something you have to go looking for in the Perplexity app.

Perplexity describes progress updates and approval requests as part of a teammate’s work, which is the right design for agents that keep running without a new prompt at every step: you get told what happened and asked before anything consequential goes out. The channels an agent watches are set separately from its tool permissions, so access is configurable rather than all-or-nothing, though the announcement does not spell out the security controls in detail, and that is a gap worth watching before handing an agent access to a real team’s channels.

Pricing: the $200 Max wall

Teammates are not a separate product you can buy on their own. They require a Perplexity Max subscription:

The two reported prices describe the same plan differently: The Verge put Max at $200 a month, while FourWeekMBA reported $167 a month on annual billing. Either way, this is a business expense, not a curiosity purchase, ten times the price of Pro, and more expensive than competing workplace agent offerings that ship inside cheaper tiers.

Two availability limits matter as much as the price. First, the initial web release is a research preview for individual Max subscribers, iOS and Android versions are planned but not here yet, and Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max accounts are not included by default, according to early reporting. Second, Teammates draw on Max’s monthly credit allocation, so more complex work or several agents running at once consumes more of those 10,000 credits. Perplexity has not said how many agents are included, or whether the $200 price is per user or per team, check before budgeting for a whole team.

Teammates vs OpenAI Dots vs Claude Duet

All three of the big labs now sell the same idea, an agent that keeps working after you close the tab, but they package it differently. No independent head-to-head test exists yet, so this is a features-and-price comparison, not a performance ranking.

The honest takeaway: for most people the deciding factor is not which agent is smarter, nobody has measured that yet, but which ecosystem you already pay for. Teammates’ Slack integration and per-agent desktops are genuinely distinctive; its $200 entry price is genuinely the highest barrier of the three.

The honest caveats

• We have not tested it. Everything here comes from Perplexity’s announcement and launch-day reporting. There are no independent benchmarks, no reliability numbers and no real-world failure stories yet. Treat every capability claim as “as announced,” not “as proven.”
• The price is the product’s biggest problem. At $200 a month, Teammates cost more than most creators’ entire software stack. Free and Pro users must upgrade to Max, and the announcement does not say whether that price covers one user or a team, or how many agents are included.
• Research preview, web only. The launch is a preview for individual Max subscribers on the web. Mobile apps are coming, enterprise accounts are not included by default, and preview features change, or disappear, without much warning.
• Credits are the hidden meter. Teammates run on Max’s 10,000 monthly Computer credits, and Perplexity has not specified the size or expiry of the launch promotion grant that applies before standard credits are charged. Heavy multi-agent use could burn through the allocation faster than the headline price suggests.
• Security details are thin. Separate desktops, encrypted credentials and per-channel Slack permissions are all promised, but the announcement does not spell out the security controls or audit trail in the detail an enterprise buyer would want before granting an agent access to real systems.
• It is not a writing or search tool. Teammates are for ongoing operational work. If your main Perplexity use is research questions with citations, the free plan or Pro at $20 already covers it, see our Perplexity review.

Who should care, and who should skip

Watch closely if: you run a small team on Slack and already pay for Perplexity Max, you have recurring operational work that gets re-explained every week (inbox triage, deadline follow-ups, research monitoring), or you are choosing between the three agent platforms and want the Slack-native option.

Skip it for now if: you are on Free or Pro, the upgrade to Max is $200 a month for a preview feature, you work solo and your agent needs are one-off tasks, or you need mobile access, which is not here yet. Revisit when the mobile apps land and the first independent reviews report real reliability.

A practical test before paying: list the recurring jobs you would hand to a teammate and estimate how many hours a week they actually take. If the honest answer is under five hours, $200 a month buys you a very expensive reminder system. If it is twenty hours of follow-ups and monitoring, the math starts to work, but wait for the first month of real user reports before committing.

Verdict

Perplexity Teammates is the most interesting agent launch of the week, and the hardest to recommend buying today. Persistent roles, inherited memory, per-agent desktops and real Slack integration are exactly the right ingredients for agents that do ongoing work instead of one-off tricks. But a $200-a-month entry fee, a web-only research preview, unpublished agent limits and zero independent testing mean the smart move for almost everyone is to watch the first month of real-world reports and let someone else pay to find the failure modes. If you already pay for Max, try one teammate on one small recurring job and measure it. Everyone else: keep the $200 and check back in a month.

FAQ

What is Perplexity Teammates?

Perplexity Teammates, launched November 5, 2026, are always-on AI agents that take on ongoing workplace roles. Each teammate keeps a persistent role, memory and project context, works in its own desktop and browser, and can hand work to other teammates or message colleagues through Slack.

How much does Perplexity Teammates cost?

Teammates require a Perplexity Max subscription, reported at $200 per month, or about $167 per month when billed annually. Max includes 10,000 monthly Computer credits, which Teammates draw on. Verify the total at checkout, as regional pricing and limits change.

Is Perplexity Teammates available on mobile?

Not yet. The launch is a research preview for individual Max subscribers on the web, with iOS and Android versions planned. Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max accounts are not included by default, according to early reporting.

How is Teammates different from OpenAI Dots and Claude Duet?

All three are always-on work agents, but they differ in platform and price. Teammates build on Perplexity Computer with Slack integration and require the $200-per-month Max plan. OpenAI’s Dots run inside ChatGPT for Pro and Business Premium accounts, and Anthropic’s Claude Duet is a separate agent offering. No independent head-to-head test results exist yet.

Can Perplexity Teammates work in Slack?

Yes. Teammates integrate with Slack: they can watch selected channels for new requests, pass work among themselves, and message colleagues. Project permissions and the Slack channels an agent watches are set separately from the agent’s tool permissions.

Related: Perplexity AI Review: Is Pro Worth $20 a Month?Claude DuetChatGPT Plus ReviewAll AI tools articles