Perplexity expands Model Council to 2–8 AI bots per query

Perplexity's expansion of Model Council reflects a shift in how AI advisory tools handle decision-making under uncertainty. The original February launch confined users to three fixed models selected by Perplexity; the new Computer integration inverts that dynamic by letting users assemble custom boards of two to eight models and control the analysis depth. This directly addresses a use case the company identifies as key: business scenarios where consensus matters more than a single authoritative answer—legal risk assessment, financial modeling, engineering tradeoffs. By explicitly surfacing where models agree and where they diverge, the feature trades the illusion of a single "right answer" for transparency about where experts (modeled as AI systems) actually diverge, which the company argues builds user confidence.

The pricing model, however, introduces a notable friction. Computer credits are abstracted from raw token usage, making the actual cost of a multi-model session opaque—Perplexity acknowledges that "it's not clear how many credits a Model Council session could burn." A "heavy" task like generating a pitch deck can consume 2,275 credits (roughly $22.75 at the published rate), while simple queries may cost less than a penny. The tiered credit allocations (4,000 for Pro, 35,000 for Max monthly) telegraph that frequent multi-model queries could escalate costs quickly, especially for teams relying on Model Council for routine corporate decisions.