Perplexity's Computer agent can now run entirely on your Mac

What happened

On October 20, Perplexity launched a fully local mode for Computer, its agent that plans and carries out multi-step tasks. Perplexity says the AI model, the “harness” that directs it and the task itself can now all run on the Mac, and that with your permission Computer can work across local files and Mac apps such as Notes, Messages, Mail and Numbers “without sending personal data to the cloud” (Perplexity).

The local mode runs Qwen 3.6 or PPLX Pro, Perplexity’s post-trained version of Qwen. You can still let it reach out to the cloud for current information, browser use and connected apps, and the older Hybrid Compute mode, which splits work between cloud and Mac, stays available (Perplexity).

The catch is hardware and price. Perplexity’s product page recommends 36 GB of unified memory for the fully local mode (Perplexity), and the mode is for Pro, Max and Enterprise subscribers (9to5Mac). Perplexity also notes that “fully local” describes where the AI runs: sending a message or a meeting invite still goes through that app’s normal service (Perplexity).

Our take

This is one of the first mainstream personal agents to let you keep the whole task, not just your files, on your own machine. That matters most for people who handle client financials, legal drafts or health records and have kept AI agents away from them for privacy reasons.

Who should care: consultants, finance and legal people, and founders with sensitive documents who already own a high-memory Mac. If your Mac has 16 GB or less, this isn’t for you yet.

What to do now: if you qualify, test it on one dull, private job, like turning a folder of notes into an action list, and compare the result with the cloud version. Local models are smaller than the frontier models in the cloud, so check the quality before you trust it with anything that matters. Keep anything that sends email or messages on manual approval.