Issue #: 016
Send date: Nov 9, 2026
Subject line: Three agency invoices just became one brief
Preheader: Perplexity’s agent now runs a full store promo. Here’s how to sell the brief and keep the agent working for you.

Ads, email, and a landing page used to be three invoices.

On November 3, Perplexity showed Computer running a full store promotion from one brief. It reads your last 30 days of Shopify sales and picks what to push. Then it builds the landing page, sets up the Meta campaign, and writes the Klaviyo emails. You decide which steps wait for your review: publishing pages, sending emails, spending on ads.

Perplexity’s own case study says Computer managed $30,000 in Meta spend for Get Maine Lobster and beat the agency that ran the account before it. That’s the vendor’s claim, not an independent test. The direction matters more than the number.

Two days later, Cursor shipped live apps. You describe a tool and get back a hosted link with a database and sign-in, and security checks run before anything goes live.

So where’s the money?

Execution is getting cheap. If you bill for doing the ads, the email, and the page, the agent is your competitor. If you bill for the brief, the review gates, and the proof it worked, the agent is your staff.

Black Friday is November 27. That gives merchants without a promo plan 18 days.

● Beginner: run the promo, gated ● Operator: build the proof, sell the package

MOVE 01 · BEGINNER
Text. A campaign brief is the one paragraph Perplexity Computer runs a whole promotion from.

Objective: you finish this move with a brief that says what you’re selling, how far the agent can go, and where it has to stop.

Write five lines: the goal, the offer, the products or collection, a hard budget cap per channel, and the dates. Then add a sixth line naming the three things that wait for you: pages, emails, and ad spend. Perplexity’s own example brief is a summer collection, 15% off, and a two-week Meta campaign capped at $1,000.

Tools: Perplexity Computer · Notion

MOVE 02 · BEGINNER
Workflow. A prep pass is a run where Perplexity Computer analyzes and drafts, and nothing gets published or sent.

Objective: you finish this move knowing which products the agent would push and why, before it touches anything live.

This is Perplexity’s own recommended starting point: analyze Shopify sales and prepare a campaign for review, then connect more accounts. Run the brief from Move 01 with only Shopify connected. Read the product picks against what you know sells. If you disagree with its picks, fix the brief, not the output.

Tools: Perplexity Computer · Shopify

MOVE 03 · BEGINNER
Workflow. Review gates are the settings that make Computer wait for your approval before an action goes live.

Objective: you finish this move with every live action, meaning page, email, and spend, waiting on your approval.

Turn on review for all three. Don’t skip spend. Perplexity’s case study says Computer adjusted budgets daily, and the coverage doesn’t say whether those changes needed sign-off. Until you’ve watched four weeks of runs (#005), every dollar waits for you.

Tools: Perplexity Computer

MOVE 04 · OPERATOR
Code. Cursor’s live apps turn one description into a hosted web app with its own link.

Objective: you finish this move with a live campaign results page a client can open from a link.

Start a cloud agent and ask it for an app. Local agents can’t build these. Describe the page: daily revenue, ad spend, email opens, and orders, read from a sheet you update. Cursor sets up the database and hosting. If the app needs your data, Cursor asks for keys, and its docs say the agent never sees them.

Tools: Cursor

MOVE 05 · OPERATOR
Code. Visibility is the setting that decides who can open your app: invited people, your team, or anyone with the link.

Objective: you finish this move having chosen the right access level for each page before you publish.

Invited and team apps sit behind Cursor sign-in, and most clients won’t have a Cursor account. Public links need no sign-in, so keep client names and revenue off any public page. Use summary numbers, or put the page behind a key for a bot. Cursor’s pre-publish checks block leaked keys and credential files. That’s a floor, not the #004 security review.

Tools: Cursor

MOVE 06 · OPERATOR
Text. A promo package is a fixed-scope offer: the brief, the review gates, and the results page, sold as one thing.

Objective: you finish this move with a one-page Black Friday offer sent to three merchants.

Price it per campaign, not per hour (#002). Lead with the outcome and the timeline, not the tools. Your proof is the Move 04 page from your own test run. Send it this week. A merchant deciding on November 20 has already lost a week.

Tools: Claude · Notion

Your first campaign brief, tested without connecting anything. About 20 minutes.

You don’t need Perplexity Computer for this. You need a sales export and an AI assistant you already use.

Each issue, this slot answers one real reader question in plain language.

No question this week that we could answer properly, so the line is open. Send what you’re stuck on to [email protected]: the workflow that half works, or the agent you won’t let run alone yet. Founding members go first.

WATCH · Perplexity Computer for e-commerce.
Where it’s strong: One brief covers sales analysis, page, ads, and email, with review gates on the three actions that cost money or reach customers. The connector list goes past Shopify to WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Google Ads, TikTok, and Mailchimp.
Where it breaks: Every result so far is Perplexity’s own case study. We’re calling WATCH until there’s an independent run on a real store.

BUY · Cursor live apps, for internal tools.
Where it’s strong: It goes from description to hosted link in one session, with security checks you can’t switch off.
Where it breaks: Private apps need Cursor sign-in, which most clients don’t have. Hosting is provided “as is,” and Cursor can suspend apps for business reasons. Don’t build anything a client depends on without a copy of the code in your own GitHub.

WATCH · Perplexity Teammates. These are persistent agents that own an ongoing job, plan the work, and bring results back for review. They can watch a Slack channel and message coworkers. Max plan only, web first. They run with the same plugin permissions you’ve installed, so check those before handing one a standing job.

FIX THIS WEEK · Conductor Cloud. Meta bought Conductor. Its cloud goes read-only November 13 and shuts down November 20, when data deletion starts. If you use it, export or move to the local app now. It’s the same reason Cursor apps need a copy in your own repo.

WATCH · ChatGPT and Codex usage. Starting in December, Plus, Pro, and Business plans share one allowance across ChatGPT and Codex, measured in tokens. Long agent runs will draw down the same pool as your chats. Check Settings → Usage once it’s live.

Carried forward. The checkpoint from #005 is Move 03’s gate on spend. The stop instruction from #004 is in the Onramp prompt. The #002 pricing rule is how you price Move 06.

A weekly dispatch for founders, freelancers, and operators who treat AI as a business tool, not a hobby. Every Monday, one question: what changed in AI this week that you should actually do something about?

Anthony | Founder of Uncover AI