Perplexity has introduced Teammates, a feature for agents that handle complex, ongoing work such as operations and marketing tasks. The company's own description is that they coordinate AI agents, manage continuing projects and follow through on them. This guide walks through the setup steps in Perplexity's Help Center, explains how to connect Slack, and suggests how to start safely.
What You Need Before You Start
Teammates are a research preview, and the requirements are strict. Check these points first:
- You need an individual Max subscription with research preview access. Free and Pro users must upgrade to Max before they can create a teammate.
- Enterprise Pro and Enterprise Max accounts are not included by default. If you are on one of those plans, ask your organization's administrator for access.
- Teammates are available only on the Perplexity website during the preview, not in a mobile app.
Pricing details are best checked on Perplexity's own pricing page. Secondary reports mention a specific monthly figure, but the Help Center article does not state one, so confirm the cost before subscribing.
Step 1: Create the Teammate
According to the Help Center, the process takes only a few minutes on the web:
- If you need to upgrade, open your profile menu, choose All settings, then Account. Under your subscription, select the upgrade option and choose Max.
- Hover over Teammates in the sidebar and select the plus button labeled Create teammate.
- Enter a name or role in the Name or role field and choose an appearance.
- Optionally open Advanced to add instructions or starting tasks. Describe the work, including a schedule if it should repeat, then click Create.
- Finish setup in the chat that opens. You can return to the teammate later from Teammates in the sidebar.
A practical tip: give the teammate a narrow job. A role such as "weekly competitor research" is easier to check than a vague role like "marketing helper." Narrow instructions make it easier to judge whether the output is good.
Step 2: Connect Slack
Slack is the main way a teammate reaches colleagues. The Help Center describes a simple connection flow:
- Open your teammate's chat and ask it to connect Slack.
- Sign in to the account you want to use and follow the connection prompt.
- Review the requested permissions before approving them.
To use Slack later, expand Plugins in the right sidebar, select Use a plugin, choose Slack under Installed, and describe the task.
When you ask the teammate to monitor Slack, the Help Center says to specify four things: the workspace, the channels, what to monitor, and when and where to send updates. Being explicit here matters. A teammate told to "watch Slack" has too much room to interpret the request, while one told to watch a single named channel for bug reports and post a summary each morning has a clear brief.
Step 3: Understand Who Can See What
A teammate's chat is visible only to its owner. Other people get read-only access to shared chats, but they can work with the teammate in the Slack channels it monitors. In practice, that means colleagues can hand over work or ask for updates inside Slack without seeing the owner's private conversation.
This design affects how you roll the feature out. If your team expects to guide the teammate directly, tell them which channel it lives in. If you want to review its work first, keep the monitored scope small until you trust the results.
Tips for a Safe Start
Perplexity's documentation covers setup rather than risk management, so the following advice is general good practice for any agent connected to workplace tools, not instructions from the company:
- Start with one channel rather than a whole workspace.
- Review the permissions screen carefully before approving any connection.
- Begin with tasks that produce drafts or summaries rather than actions that cannot be undone.
- Check early output against what a person would have produced, and widen the scope only after several reliable runs.
- Keep a record of what you asked the teammate to do, so you can adjust instructions when results drift.
Why It Matters
Persistent agents shift AI use from asking a question to assigning an ongoing job. That raises the value of clear instructions and careful permissions, because a teammate that keeps working can also keep making the same mistake. The Slack connection puts the agent where colleagues already talk, which makes adoption easier but also makes oversight more important.
The research preview label is also worth taking seriously. Features can change, plan requirements can shift, and the website-only limit may not last. Treat the current steps as a snapshot and check the Help Center article for updates before you roll anything out to a team.
For individuals, the lesson is practical. Pick one recurring task, write a narrow brief, connect only the tools it needs, and review the results for a week. That approach gets the benefit of a persistent agent without handing it more access than the job requires.
