Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine aiming to challenge Google’s dominance, has launched a new offering called Perplexity Labs. The innovative feature, exclusive to Perplexity’s Pro-tier subscribers who pay $20 monthly, can generate detailed reports, spreadsheets, interactive dashboards, and other business and personal project content.
Currently available across the web platform, as well as on iOS and Android devices, Perplexity Labs will soon expand to include dedicated apps for Mac and Windows. According to the company’s announcement, this new tool is specifically designed for elaborate tasks requiring more than ten minutes to complete, leveraging advanced file creation capabilities and the ability to build mini-applications within its platform.
The timing of the Labs release coincides closely with innovative offerings from other emerging AI companies—most notably Manus, which recently unveiled its own tool for swiftly generating slide presentations. The introduction of Perplexity Labs marks another step toward broadening Perplexity’s product line beyond mere search capabilities. Already, the firm is previewing Comet, a proprietary web browser, and recently finalized the acquisition of Read.vc, a professional networking platform.
Powered by its AI infrastructure, Perplexity Labs performs comprehensive research activities and sophisticated analyses. The system combines web searching, programming capabilities, data visualization tools, and graphics creation software to produce a variety of complex outputs. Additionally, it can build interactive web-based applications, automatically generate structured data and formula-driven spreadsheets, and author richly formatted documents.
Throughout the Labs workflow, generated items like images, code snippets, and various charts are organized neatly within a dedicated interface that makes reviewing and downloading content seamless. According to the company’s blog post detailing the launch, such enhanced functionality allows users to produce an extensive range of high-quality outputs, fulfilling diverse professional needs.
Still, despite these promising features showcased by Perplexity Labs, the effectiveness of AI technologies remains mixed, and some results are bound to fall short of user expectations. Practical experience will ultimately determine if Labs truly delivers the robust capabilities the company promises.
The rollout of Labs appears aligned with Perplexity’s increasingly pronounced focus on enterprise-grade functionality. This strategic direction was underscored last year by the company’s introduction of its enterprise service tier, equipped with user management, internal knowledge-base search, and additional corporate-friendly solutions. Analysts suggest part of this push stems from the financial imperatives driven by Perplexity’s venture capital backers, who reportedly anticipate sizeable returns as the company recently entered negotiations to raise up to $1 billion at a valuation nearing $18 billion.
