Perplexity Lets You Build a Panel of AI Models to Debate Your Hardest Questions

Key points

• Perplexity expanded its Model Council feature to its Computer platform on Tuesday, 24 June 2025.
• Users can now select two to eight AI models to analyse a question in parallel, up from a fixed three with no user choice at launch.
• The feature is now available to individual Pro subscribers at $20 a month, down from a previous minimum of $200 a month.
• Credits cost $1 per 100, and a single complex task can consume up to 2,275 credits ($22.75).
• Model Council is designed for questions with no single right answer, such as legal, financial, and strategic decisions.

Perplexity, the AI-powered search company, has given its Model Council feature a significant upgrade, and for the first time it is available to subscribers who pay as little as $20 a month.

Model Council, first launched in February 2025, works like a panel discussion between AI models. You pose a question, multiple models each work on it separately, and then a "chair" model reads all their answers and writes a single synthesis report that shows where the models agree and where they differ. Think of it as asking four consultants the same question, then having a fifth consultant summarise their combined advice.

What exactly changed?

The update brings Model Council into Perplexity's Computer platform, a web-based tool that sits on top of a model-orchestration layer, meaning software that coordinates multiple AI models working together behind the scenes. Previously, the Council ran with three pre-selected models and no user input. Now users can pick two to eight models, choosing from big-name providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, as well as open-weight models (freely available models that anyone can download and run) such as GLM and Kimi.

Computer can also convert the synthesis into finished documents. Reports, slide decks, and other ready-to-use files are all on the table, not just a block of text.

Who pays how much?

Credits are the currency Computer uses. One hundred credits equal $1. A light task such as summarising a document costs roughly 100 to 350 credits (one dollar to $3.50). A heavy task, like producing a finished pitch deck, can hit 2,275 credits, or about $22.75 in a single session.

Perplexity did not confirm exactly how many credits a full Model Council session burns. Comms chief Jesse Dwyer told The Register that query complexity matters more than which models you pick: "Simple queries in Computer can cost less than a penny while complex tasks run higher." That is helpful context, but it means costs are hard to predict before you run a session.

Should you try it?

Model Council is genuinely well-matched to questions that have no clean answer: a business owner weighing a new market, a freelancer reviewing contract terms, a manager stress-testing a hiring plan. Seeing where multiple models disagree can be as useful as seeing where they converge, because disagreement usually flags hidden assumptions worth examining.

But watch the credits. Run a few light test queries first to gauge your typical spend before you feed the Council your most complex strategic question.

Here is the honest caveat: the users most likely to share success stories are the ones who got clean, useful answers. AI models still hallucinate, meaning they confidently state things that are not true, and a synthesis of several wrong answers is not better than one. Treat the output as a starting point for your own research, not a final verdict.

Takeaway: Start with a $20 Pro subscription, use the 4,000 bonus credits on a real but non-critical decision, and see whether the multi-model debate adds anything your own judgement would have missed.