Perplexity Launches Teammates: Always-On AI Agents for the Workplace

Like OpenAI's Dots and Anthropic's Claude Duet, Perplexity's Teammates can perform a wide range of tasks while running 24/7.

By Emma Roth

Perplexity Enters the AI Agent Race

Perplexity has unveiled Teammates, its own take on always-on AI agents designed for work. The launch positions the company alongside OpenAI's Dots and Anthropic's Claude Duet in the rapidly expanding market for autonomous workplace assistants.

What Teammates Can Do

Unlike a traditional chatbot that responds only when prompted, Teammates are built to operate continuously—running 24/7 to handle an array of tasks on the user's behalf. According to Perplexity, these agents can take on a broad spectrum of responsibilities, from research and monitoring to executing multi-step workflows, all while operating in the background.

A Crowded but Growing Field

Perplexity's entry reflects a broader industry shift in 2026 toward persistent, agentic AI that works alongside employees rather than waiting for instructions. OpenAI's Dots and Anthropic's Claude Duet have already staked claims in this space, signaling that always-on agents are becoming a standard expectation in enterprise AI tooling.

With Teammates, Perplexity is betting that its search-first heritage and real-time information retrieval will give it an edge in delivering agents that are not only autonomous but also grounded in current, verifiable data.

What's Next

As AI agents move from novelty to necessity in the workplace, competition among Perplexity, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others is likely to intensify. The key differentiators will be reliability, integration with existing workflows, and the ability to operate safely over long periods without human oversight.

Perplexity's Teammates marks another step in that direction—and a clear signal that 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the always-on AI coworker.

Originally reported by Emma Roth.

via The Verge AI