I had a new business idea sitting in my notes. The kind that sounds exciting at 10pm and overwhelming at 8am when you start thinking about all the research it would actually take.

Market size. Competitors. Pricing. What to build first. I know what that research looks like when I do it manually. Weeks of tabs, notes, and second-guessing. So this time I gave it to Perplexity Computer.

One prompt. I described the idea and told it what I needed. Then I stepped away.

It came back with a full business plan. Market research, competitor analysis, pricing structure, packaged into Notion. That was the moment I started thinking about two Perplexity tools very differently.

The AI Move

Perplexity has two tools that do fundamentally different things, and most people are not clear on when to reach for which one.

Perplexity Computer

The agent layer. You give it a goal, it handles the full task, you come back when it's done. Best for research you'd otherwise do yourself: a competitor brief, a market analysis, a pricing study. You describe the outcome. It figures out the steps and executes them without you managing each one.

Perplexity Comet

The browser. It browses the internet alongside you during an active session. Ask it to dig into something while you're reading, summarize what's on the page, or take action based on what you just found. It moves with you as you work.

The simple way to think about it: Computer is for defined tasks you want to hand off completely. Comet is for active work sessions where you want AI alongside you in real time.

Both are worth adding to your stack. Start with Computer. Pick one research task you've been doing manually and give it to Computer this week. See what comes back.

This week's prompt

Paste this into Perplexity Computer (or Claude with web search on) to hand off a research task completely.

I need you to research [describe the task in one sentence].

Please:
•  Identify the key questions this research needs to answer
•  Find relevant data, trends, and real examples
•  Summarize findings in a clear, actionable brief
•  Flag any gaps where more research would strengthen this

Package the output in a format I can act on. I'm handing this off completely.