Perplexity is working on an AI-powered coding assistant as it plans to expand beyond AI search into software development. The project, internally codenamed 'Teammate', is now being tested by engineers. The new tool is designed to compete with coding assistants such as Anthropic's Claude Code, Cursor and OpenAI's developer-focused tools.
According to reports, the product has been in internal use since May. While Perplexity has not announced a public launch timeline, the project signals the company's ambition to establish itself as a broader AI platform rather than remain focused solely on AI-powered search.
The AI assistant is reportedly being developed to handle software development tasks from start to finish. The key functions of Teammate include:
Aid developers in writing code
Detect bugs
Service monitoring
Conduct various engineering tasks instead of generating only pieces of code
The tool is also reportedly model-agnostic, allowing it to work with multiple AI models instead of relying on a single large language model.
The project aligns with the broader industry trend of developing AI agents capable of handling complex software development tasks with minimal human intervention. Thus, unlike coding copilots, such agents should handle much of the software development workflow.
According to CTO Denis Yarats, “ the firm is trying to make sure that engineers focus less on code review and more on the output generated by AI as long as it passes certain quality criteria.” The report also suggests Perplexity is encouraging its engineering teams to rely more heavily on AI during software development.
This strategy is well aligned with the growing use of AI coding assistants in the tech industry. There is already an ongoing race to improve developer productivity through automation. The latest move by Perplexity emerges amid fierce competition in the AI coding market. Claude Code from Anthropic, Cursor as an AI-native coding tool, and Codex from OpenAI have already established themselves in the market.
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