Perplexity, the artificial intelligence search engine that powers Google, on Thursday launched Perplexity Labs, a tool for Perplexity Pro subscribers that costs $20 per month and can create reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, and more.
Perplexity Labs is available on the web, on iOS, and on Android, and will soon be available in Perplexity’s Mac and Windows apps.
“Perplexity Labs can help you complete a variety of work and personal projects,” Perplexity explains on its blog. “Labs is designed to help you spend more time on tasks — 10 minutes or longer — and use additional tools [to complete tasks], such as advanced file generation and mini-app creation.”
Labs, which comes on the same day that viral AI agent platform Manus released a tool for creating slide collections, is part of Perplexity’s effort to expand beyond its core business of search. Perplexity is currently testing the Comet web browser and recently acquired Read.vc, a social networking network for professionals.
Perplexity Labs, powered by artificial intelligence, can conduct research and analysis in about 10 minutes, using tools such as web searches, code execution, and charting and image generation to create reports and visualizations. Perplexity says Labs can create interactive web applications, as well as write code to structure data, apply formulas, and create documents.
All files created during the Perplexity Labs workflow, such as charts, images, and code files, are organized into a tab from which they can be viewed or downloaded. “This expanded capability allows you to develop a wider range of deliverables for your projects,” says a Perplexity blog post.
All of this sounds good in theory, but since artificial intelligence is an imperfect technology, Labs is likely to fail miserably. Of course, we’ll hold off on judgment until we have a chance to test it out.
Perplexity has been investing more and more in enterprise-focused functionality, launching an enterprise plan last summer with user management, “internal knowledge search,” and more. These moves may be in part at the behest of Perplexity’s backers, who are no doubt eager to see a return as quickly as possible. Perplexity is reportedly in talks to raise up to $1 billion in capital from investors at an $18 billion valuation.
