New Perplexity app turns your Windows PC into an AI agent

Perplexity, the company known for its AI-powered search engine, launched Personal Computer, a feature that installs an AI assistant directly on Windows. Instead of just answering questions in a chat window, it now acts on the computer: opening programs, organizing folders, searching for information, and executing sequences of tasks from a single command, like a digital intern living inside your PC.

The launch comes at a time when the entire industry is racing after so-called AI agents, systems that don't just converse, but act. After betting on its own browser, Comet, Perplexity now targets the operating system, competing with Microsoft's Copilot, Anthropic's computer control mode, and OpenAI's agents. The PC, where most people actually work, has become the new AI battleground.

For those learning AI in Brazil, this news is a clear sign: the skill of the future is not just talking to the chatbot, but knowing how to delegate tasks to an agent, describing objectives clearly and checking the result. And since Windows dominates personal and corporate computers in the country, this is probably the first form of agent you'll encounter in practice, without needing special equipment or advanced technical knowledge.

In practice, imagine asking: take all the payment receipts from this folder, rename them with the date, and assemble a spreadsheet with the amounts. Or: search for flight prices to Recife in November and send me a summary. A small business owner can automate boring administrative tasks, and a student can organize material for all subjects in minutes, instead of spending hours on repetitive and tedious manual work.

The advice is to start slowly: test the agent on simple, risk-free tasks, away from passwords, banking data, and sensitive documents, because software that acts on your PC can also make mistakes or be tricked by malicious content. Always review what it did before trusting the result. Keep an eye on the price, availability in Portuguese, and the permissions the program asks for — that reveals a lot about where your data goes.