Two weeks into planning the offsite. Notes in three apps, tabs you're scared to close, and a Perplexity history you re-explain every session. There's a better way to keep it all in one place — and it's called Spaces. By the end of this lesson, you'll know how to set up a Space, upload your own files, and query directly against them — so your research builds on itself.

A Space is a persistent project environment inside Perplexity. It keeps your research threads, uploaded files, custom instructions, and collaborators in one place, so every session picks up where the last one left off.

Without a Space, every new thread starts fresh. You carry the overhead of re-establishing context, re-uploading files, and re-explaining priorities every time. Let's try creating a Space.

Click New Space in the right sidebar, give it a name like "Team Offsite 2026," and you're in. From here, you can add instructions, upload files, and invite collaborators.

Before you create your first Space, Perplexity shows you a selection of pre-built templates — things like Trip Planner Pro, Research Assistant, and more. Pick one that fits your task and it opens ready to use. For your offsite task, you can use the "Trip Planner Pro" template.

Templates are designed for quick, one-off use — they're not saved to your Spaces by default, and they work best as-is rather than something you'd customize or share. For a project you'll keep coming back to, there's a better move.

That's exactly what we'll do with the Trip Planner Pro template. Create a new Space called "Team Offsite 2026," and paste the instructions under Space instructions. From that point, every search in the Space runs with that framing already built in.

The custom instruction can be as detailed as you need it to be. You can set the tone, format, priorities, and constraints. In this case, it's set up as a travel planning assistant that asks clarifying questions, builds day-by-day itineraries, and includes local tips. Everything typed here runs silently behind every search in the Space. Let's run a search with that instruction.

See how the template already knew how to structure around budget, logistics, and local tips. That's the custom instruction doing its job — your framing was built in before you even asked the first question.

Notice the follow-up suggestions at the bottom of the answer. Perplexity generates these automatically — a quick way to keep the research moving without having to think about what to ask next.

Perplexity also lets you upload files and search within them. When you run a thread inside a Space with uploaded files, it pulls answers from those files, not from the web. This means that your documents become the source.

To see how that works, you first need a file. Let's ask Perplexity to estimate the off-site budget, then turn that into a file you can upload.

Great! You have a file that Perplexity can read and answer questions about, using your actual numbers, not general web data. Let's put that to use.

Now you can see which categories carry the most risk. The next question is what to do about them — specifically, where the budget can be brought down without changing the offsite team's spirit. Let's ask Perplexity.

Specific platforms, price comparisons, and booking strategies — all cited so you can verify before acting. Sources pointing you toward cheaper alternatives you wouldn't have found in a general search. And now your whole team can benefit from it, not just you. Let's try bringing them in.

Once your Space is set up, click Share to share it and add collaborators. They join with access to the same threads, files, and instructions you've already built.

And just like that, your coordinator is working from the same files, the same instructions, and the same research you've already built. That's Spaces doing what they're designed for.

There are pre-built templates for other situations as well.

Now, let's recap the full process from start to finish.

You now know how to build a research environment that holds context, works with your own files, and brings your team in without starting over. In the next unit, you'll go deeper into Perplexity Computer: how to hand it full workflows, not just single tasks, and what it can handle that no search mode can. See you there!