Designing complex projects like detailed spreadsheets, interactive dashboards, or comprehensive reports can often take hours or even days. What if an AI tool could significantly speed up this process, taking your ideas from concept to completed deliverable in minutes? That’s the aim behind Perplexity Labs, a new capability from the AI company Perplexity.
Perplexity Labs is designed to act like a dedicated team, helping you bring an entire idea to life. It’s a productivity tool that tackles complex projects on your behalf, powered by extensive research and analysis.
What Perplexity Labs Can Create for You
Perplexity Labs leverages tools like deep web browsing, code execution, and chart and image creation to assemble complex projects. It often performs 10 minutes or more of self-supervised work, and sometimes much longer, depending on the project’s complexity.
- Reports: Give Labs the topic, and it will gather and compile the required information to build dynamic reports with text, charts, graphs, and images. For example, one user asked Labs to create a report correlating Halley’s Comet arrivals with significant Earth events, and it produced a detailed, organized report with links, charts, and images. All created files are placed in an Assets section for easy viewing and downloading.
- Spreadsheets: Labs can design anything from a simple table to a complex, interactive spreadsheet based on your subject or goal. It finds the necessary information and builds what you need. An interactive spreadsheet for a Sudoku puzzle was successfully designed by Labs, based on gathered rules and regulations. Created files, like CSVs, are available in the Assets tab.
- Dashboards: Labs can create interactive dashboards designed to provide visual information clearly. For instance, a request for an interactive dashboard showing NASDAQ performance from 1971 through 2025 resulted in a dashboard with drop-down menus to filter the time period and switch between scales. Charts and images are also available in the Assets tab.
- Mini Apps: Labs can help you develop simple interactive web apps directly within an “App” tab. This allows for basic dashboards, slideshows, and websites without needing external development tools. An example included creating a web app showing time zones for world regions with a selectable drop-down menu.
Labs vs. Research: When to choose what?
Perplexity offers different modes for different needs. While Perplexity’s regular search provides answers to specific questions, the “Research” mode (formerly “Deep Research”) generates comprehensive analyses.
- Research remains the fastest way to obtain comprehensive answers to in-depth questions, typically completing its task within 3 to 5 minutes.
- Labs is designed for more complex projects that require bringing an entire idea to life. It invests more time, taking 10 minutes or longer, sometimes up to nearly an hour depending on complexity. Labs leverages additional tools like advanced file generation and mini-app creation to produce a broader array of deliverables for your projects.
In essence, use Research when you need a detailed, comprehensive answer quickly, and use Labs when you need to convert your curiosity into action by creating a tangible project like a report, spreadsheet, dashboard, or simple app. Perplexity Labs aims to accomplish in minutes what previously would have taken days of work, tedious research, and coordination of different skills.
Perplexity Labs is available only to Perplexity’s Pro subscribers on the web and mobile apps, with desktop versions coming soon. Rather simply answering questions, Labs moves toward actively creating content.
The extent to which AI has developed brings more concern on the replacement of jobs, especially with freshers. With the introduction of AI like Perplexity Labs, it may affect business analysts, consultants and middle-managers too in the near future. Earlier we wrote an article which reports that there will be an 45% increase of AI jobs in IT sectors in FY 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Perplexity Labs automates complex project creation: This new AI tool from Perplexity can generate detailed reports, interactive spreadsheets, custom dashboards, and even mini-apps, significantly reducing the time required for such tasks.
- Leverages advanced AI capabilities: Labs utilizes deep web Browse, code execution, and content creation (charts, images) to gather information and assemble comprehensive deliverables.
- Differentiates from other Perplexity modes: Unlike Perplexity’s standard search (for specific answers) or Research mode (for quick, comprehensive answers), Labs is designed for building entire projects from an idea, requiring more processing time.
- Aims to streamline workflows: The core benefit of Perplexity Labs is its ability to convert complex ideas into tangible projects in minutes, a process that traditionally takes hours or days.
- Raises concerns about job displacement: The advanced capabilities of Perplexity Labs, particularly in automating tasks like data compilation and report generation, could potentially impact roles traditionally held by business analysts, consultants, and middle managers.
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