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MACHINE AGE CARTOON

QUICK QUESTION...

By Zimbo · November 6, 2026

AI cartoon by Zimbo: Satirical cartoon: three cheerful robots work BUG REPORTS, CAMPAIGN and METRICS desks while a weary human leaves the office staring at a Slack message reading QUICK QUESTION..., on plain white paper.
Perplexity's AI coworkers never clock out — $200 a month. The robots keep working, so neither can you.Zimbo for AI News Page

The story behind the cartoon

Perplexity launched Teammates on November 5: AI agents that take on ongoing roles — running a campaign, triaging bug reports, tracking metrics — inside a shared workspace, instead of answering one question and stopping.

Each teammate draws on the user's existing Perplexity Computer projects, skills and memory, works in its own thread, passes tasks to other teammates, and can message coworkers through Slack. Teammates cost $200 a month.

The pitch is a coworker that never clocks out — which, for the humans in the shared workspace, means the workday no longer has an end either; the teammate's Slack message arrives whether or not anyone is still at their desk.

The joke is the never-clocks-out beat: three cheerful robots keep working the BUG REPORTS, CAMPAIGN and METRICS desks while the weary human heads home — only to get a Slack QUICK QUESTION... from a teammate that never sleeps.

READ THE FULL REPORT — AI Affairs ↗

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