Perplexity’s AI agents helped build a database. They weren’t allowed to run it.

Perplexity built CobbleDB, a Rust-based key-value store database, with AI agents' help to replace DynamoDB, achieving faster read latencies and reducing costs by about 20%. Despite agent involvement in development, production control was restricted to avoid risks. CobbleDB now handles part of Perplexity's search traffic with improved performance and plans for open-source release.