Perplexity Model Council expands to Computer with user-picked AI models
Perplexity is bringing Model Council to Computer, adding configurable multi-model queries with usage-based credit costs.
By Renata Fuchs · Policy Reporter
· 3 min read
Perplexity Model Council is expanding to the company’s cloud-based Computer product, giving users more control over multi-model queries and the reports generated from them. The feature is available to individual Pro users at $20 a month, individual Max users at $200 a month, and enterprise customers, but Computer also uses usage-based credits, so the final cost depends on the task.
Perplexity said Tuesday that Model Council is meant to let a user assemble a group of AI models to answer a single question. Each model works on the prompt separately, and a synthesizer model produces a combined response that shows where the models line up and where they disagree.
The product had been more limited when it launched in February. At that point, Model Council used three Perplexity-available models without user selection. With the move into Computer, users can pick between two and eight models, including models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, as well as open-weight options such as GLM and Kimi. Perplexity said users can also set the depth of analysis.
How does Perplexity Model Council work?
Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity’s communications chief, said by email that Model Council acts as a skill that instructs an orchestrator model to create parallel subagents. Each subagent runs as a full agent harness, works through the problem independently, and then waits for the rest before the user-selected “chair” model reads the outputs and writes the synthesis.
Computer is Perplexity’s web interface for model orchestration. In this version, Perplexity said Computer can take the Council’s synthesis and turn it into work assets such as reports and board decks. The company is positioning the feature for questions with tradeoffs rather than one fixed answer, including legal issues, financial analysis, corporate decisions, business growth modeling and engineering work.
Perplexity said the product can be used for follow-up questions and requests for more detail. The company also tells users to ask the Council for confidence levels and to have models state the assumptions behind their conclusions, because disagreements may reflect different starting points.
How much does Perplexity Model Council cost?
Access has widened, but the economics are less straightforward than a flat subscription. Model Council had previously been limited to enterprise tiers and individual Max customers. Enterprise Pro is priced at $34 per seat per month, and Enterprise Max is priced at $271, according to Perplexity. The expanded Computer version now includes individual Pro and Max users as well as enterprise tiers.
Computer credits sit on top of those plans. Perplexity said 100 Computer credits equal $1. Pro users receive 4,000 bonus credits, while Max users receive 35,000 bonus credits plus 10,000 credits each month. Enterprise Pro customers receive 8,000 bonus credits and 500 monthly credits per seat. Enterprise Max customers receive 45,000 bonus credits and 15,000 monthly credits per seat.
Perplexity said a light Computer task, such as summarizing a document and extracting key points, can use 100 to 350 credits. A heavy task, such as producing a pitch deck or another work-ready asset, can use as many as 2,275 credits. The company did not specify how many credits a Model Council session consumes, which is the key missing number for teams evaluating repeated use.
Dwyer said query complexity has more effect on token use than the specific models selected. He said simple Computer queries can cost less than a penny, while more complex tasks cost more. For operators, the practical question is whether model disagreement and synthesis are useful enough to justify a workflow that can spend credits faster than a normal single-model prompt.
This story draws on original reporting from The Register.
