I've watched entire research threads die in Slack. Someone pastes a PDF link at 2 PM, three people react with emoji, and by Thursday nobody can find it. The same link gets re-shared a week later like it's new. Meanwhile, the team's actual knowledge base is a graveyard of bookmarks, pinned messages, and half-forgotten Google Docs.
Perplexity Spaces fixes this in a way that genuinely surprised me.
What Are Perplexity Spaces?
Spaces is a feature inside Perplexity (the AI search engine) that lets you create shared research collections. You drop in URLs, PDFs, and notes — then anyone with access can ask questions directly against that material. Think of it as a mini research library where the librarian is an AI that actually read everything you uploaded.
Set One Up in 3 Steps
Step 1 — Open Spaces. Go to perplexity.ai and sign in (Google, Apple, or email all work). In the left sidebar, click "Spaces". You'll see any existing spaces, or an empty state prompting you to create one.
Step 2 — Create and name your Space. Hit the create button. Give it a clear project name — something like "Q4 Market Research" or "Thesis Literature Review" instead of something vague like "Stuff." Set visibility to private if it's solo work, or shared if your study group or team needs access. You can also pick a default AI model and write custom instructions telling the AI how to respond within this Space (for example: "Always cite the source document and page number").
Step 3 — Feed it sources and start asking. This is where it gets good. Upload PDFs, paste article URLs, or type in your own notes. Perplexity indexes everything. Now invite collaborators by email — they can add their own sources too. Once the collection has material, anyone in the Space can ask natural-language questions and get answers grounded in your shared documents, not random internet results.
I tested this with a 40-page policy report and two blog posts. Within seconds, I could ask "What are the three main regulatory risks mentioned across these sources?" and get a coherent answer with inline citations pointing back to the exact documents. The whole setup took less than a minute.
Where It Falls Short
- Free tier limits. You get a limited number of Spaces and file uploads on the free plan. If your team is running five concurrent projects, you'll probably hit the ceiling and need Perplexity Pro.
- Large PDF handling. Very long documents (200+ pages) can choke or get partially indexed. I've seen it miss content buried deep in appendices. For massive documents, consider splitting them into chapters before uploading.
- No offline access. Everything runs in the browser. If you're on a plane or working somewhere without internet, your Space is unreachable. There's no export-to-local option either.
Even with those limits, this beats the alternative — which is usually "scroll up 300 messages in a group chat and hope someone bookmarked the right PDF." If you're doing any kind of team-based reading or research, Spaces is worth the 60 seconds it takes to set up.