Perplexity’s AI helper for the Mac can now run entirely on your own computer instead of sending your data to the cloud. The company announced on October 20 that Perplexity Computer can work fully locally on Apple Silicon Macs, Engadget and MacRumors report, but you will need a paid plan and a Mac with plenty of memory.
What Perplexity Computer is
Perplexity is best known as an AI search engine. Perplexity Computer is its “agent” feature: an AI that can carry out tasks for you across the apps on your Mac, such as Notes, Messages, Mail, Keynote and Numbers, rather than just answering questions.
Engadget gives an example: it could read through your notes and email and build a prioritized to-do list, without your email ever leaving the machine.
What’s new: everything stays on the Mac
In September, Perplexity introduced Hybrid Compute, which split work between powerful cloud AI models and smaller models running on your Mac. The new update goes further. The AI model itself, plus the planning, reasoning and file handling, can now all happen on the device.
For the local AI, you can choose between Qwen 3.6 (an AI model from Alibaba) or PPLX Pro, which is Perplexity’s own version of Qwen 3.6 tuned for this kind of computer work. Code and tool actions run in a sandbox, a walled-off space that keeps them from affecting the rest of your system.
It isn’t strictly offline in every case. If a task needs fresh information from the web, web browsing or a cloud-connected app, Computer can reach out to the cloud, but only if you approve it. You can also choose to bring in one of more than 15 cloud AI models for harder jobs.
Perplexity says the update “gives users more control over sensitive data and credit spend,” referring to the usage credits that cloud tasks consume.
The hardware catch
Running an AI model locally takes a lot of memory. Perplexity recommends “36GB of memory or more,” according to MacRumors, on a recent Apple Silicon Mac. That rules out many everyday Macs, which ship with less. If your Mac falls short, the older Hybrid Compute option works on machines with as little as 24GB.
Who can use it
Local Computer is available now to Perplexity Pro, Max and Enterprise subscribers. It is not part of the free plan. Neither Engadget nor MacRumors lists prices for those tiers.
What it means for you
This is mainly for privacy-minded Mac owners who already pay for Perplexity and have a well-equipped machine. If that is you, download the latest Perplexity app for Mac and choose the fully local option; the app walks you through installing a local model. If you are on the free plan, or your Mac has 16GB or 24GB of memory, this one isn’t for you yet. The wider trend is worth noting, though: AI assistants that keep your personal files on your own device are becoming a real option, not just a promise.