AI
Autonomous AI Is Here
Alloy Newsletter:
Insights into the intersection of AI, Law, and Business.
Perplexity AI launched Personal Computer on March 11.
Personal Computer is an always-on AI agent running on a dedicated Mac mini, connected to your local apps and Perplexity's secure servers, acting as a digital proxy that works 24/7 on your behalf to orchestrate tools, tasks, and files from any device, anywhere. Rather than responding to individual prompts, the system operates continuously in the background, capable of researching topics, drafting emails, generating reports, and coordinating actions across applications — allowing users to assign multi-step tasks the AI completes independently.
This is not a productivity feature. It is a structural shift in how work gets done.
I watched it firsthand this weekend. Using Claude's Google plugin, I gave it an objective and watched it navigate websites, locate information, and enter data on my behalf without me touching the keyboard. The Jarvis comparison is not hyperbole anymore: we are all a little closer to becoming Iron Man.
These systems operate with persistent, always-on access to your files, email, calendar, and CRM, with authority to act on all of them autonomously. Your calendar shows a 9am meeting downtown: your Uber is already ordered. A contract renewal is due in 30 days: your AI drafted the amendment and flagged it for review. A prospect goes dark: your CRM triggers a follow-up sequence without you touching it. Perplexity's enterprise version completed an estimated 3.25 years of work in four weeks in internal testing.
Most coverage stops there. It shouldn't.
When an AI agent has access to your vendor contracts, client communications, and employee systems, the legal questions are live: data governance, third-party access rights, confidentiality obligations, employment law. Every "sensitive action requiring user approval" still requires a user who understands what they approved. That approval is a legal act.
The productivity gains are real. The legal infrastructure to capture them safely is not yet built at most companies. That gap is where liability lives.
