Guide to using Perplexity Labs for financial analysis
🚀 The AI Power Move: How Perplexity Labs Is Changing Financial Analysis (and More)
“AI won’t replace you. But someone using AI just might.” That line hit me like a cold shower the first time I heard it. And nowhere is it more true than in financial analysis.
If you’re still crunching numbers in Excel for hours, or Googling for the latest market data… let me tell you, there’s a better way. Enter Perplexity Labs — the AI workspace that’s quietly making analysts, founders, and creators rethink what’s possible.
Let’s break it down. Here’s what I’ve learned after diving deep into Labs, running my own projects, and poking at every feature I could find.
👋 What You'll Learn Today
Why Perplexity Labs?
🛠️ Getting Started: How To Use Perplexity Labs
🧩 Templates: The Secret Sauce
The Top 5 Financial Analysis Templates
Beyond Finance: 4 Use Cases
💸 Deep Dive: Financial Analysis With Labs
🔍 Four More Killer Use Cases
📝 My Takeaway: The Builder's Mindset
🤔 Over to You
🧑💻 The Setup: Why Perplexity Labs?
Let me tell you a truth: I used to think “AI for finance” meant a chatbot that could spit out stock prices. Boring. Labs is different. It’s not just another search box — it’s a full-on project engine. You give it a prompt, and it spins up dashboards, spreadsheets, reports, even web apps. All in about 10 minutes, with live data, charts, and code if you want it.
Perplexity Labs is built for anyone who wants to do more than just “ask questions.” It’s for building, automating, and actually getting work done — whether that’s market research, financial models, or content dashboards.
🛠️ Getting Started: How To Use Perplexity Labs (Yes, Even If You’re New)
First, you’ll need a Perplexity Pro account — Labs is a premium feature, and honestly, it’s worth it if you’re serious about saving time.
Here’s the quick-start workflow:
Log in to Perplexity. On web or mobile, you’ll see a “Labs” mode option in the input bar.
Pick a template (or start from scratch). Labs comes with ready-made templates for things like financial dashboards, market analysis, project trackers, and more. Just click “Templates” and preview what’s available.
Describe your project. You can say things like “Build me a dashboard comparing top SaaS stocks over the last year” or “Create a report on AI market trends.” The more specific, the better.
Let Labs work. The AI will browse data, run code, and assemble your project — usually in under 10 minutes.
Review, tweak, download. You can edit the output, download spreadsheets, or even share a web app link.
And yes, you can access Labs on iOS and Android, not just your laptop.
🧩 Templates: The Secret Sauce
Templates are a game-changer. They’re like “starter kits” — pre-built workflows for common use cases. Here’s what you’ll find:
Financial dashboards: Real-time stock, crypto, index tracking.
Market research reports: Competitor analysis, industry summaries.
Content planners: Editorial calendars, social media dashboards.
Project trackers: Kanban boards, Gantt charts, status reports.
Data visualizations: Automated charting, trend spotting.
Just pick a template, fill in your details, and Labs does the heavy lifting. You can always customize or build your own from scratch if you want to get fancy.
Here's where most people mess up: they treat Labs like a blank canvas. But Labs comes with 40+ pre-built templates that are absolute gold mines for specific use cases.
The Top 5 Financial Analysis Templates You Need:
Takes control of your finances—track spending, plan budgets, get personalized suggestions. Perfect for personal financial planning or small business cash flow analysis.
Ask questions about stocks in the S&P 500, the largest 5000 US traded stocks, and India traded stocks. Updates weekly, so you're always working with fresh data.
Query any S&P company transcript over the last two years. Updates surface within 15 minutes of a call ending. Use format "TSLA Q1 2025" to access specific documents.
Get responses in Warren Buffett's tone—grounded in his letters and meeting notes. This template analyzes investment decisions through the lens of value investing principles.
Evaluate investment opportunities faster—upload startup materials and compare with past deals and market signals. Game-changing for VCs and startup analysis.
Each template comes with pre-configured prompts that would take hours to craft manually . Just input your data and watch Labs work its magic.
Beyond Finance: 4 Use Cases That'll Change Your Workflow
🕵️♂️ Profile Builder: Instant Company Intelligence
Enter any person or company name and get a comprehensive profile 2. I use this before every client meeting—it builds detailed backgrounds, recent news, financial performance, and key personnel in minutes.
🃏 Competitor Battlecards: Sales Team Superpower
Arms your sales team with fast, confident answers to competitive questions. Just ask how you stack up, and Labs builds comparison charts, feature matrices, and objection-handling scripts.
🌴 Trip Planner Pro: Beyond Business Travel
Plan trips with personalized itineraries and tips—just share where you're going and what you're into. But here's the PM twist: I use this for customer research trips and conference planning.
📝 Blog Post Generator: Content That Converts
Create blog posts that match your tone, voice, and structure 2. Input your product updates, and Labs creates announcement posts, feature explanations, and thought leadership content.
💸 Deep Dive: Financial Analysis With Labs
Here’s where the magic happens. I put Labs through its paces for financial analysis — and wow, did it deliver.
What works:
Real-time data: Pulls from sources like Financial Modeling Prep, so you get up-to-date prices, earnings, and ratios.
Custom dashboards: Want to track your portfolio, compare sectors, or analyze momentum trading strategies? Labs builds interactive dashboards in minutes.
Automated reports: Need an investment memo or market sizing doc for your next pitch? Just prompt Labs, and it’ll assemble the research, charts, and even code snippets.
What doesn’t:
Surface-level insights: If you need deep, forensic accounting or proprietary data, Labs can’t (yet) replace a human analyst. It’s best for 80/20 work — quick, broad analysis, not deep audits.
Manual review needed: Always sanity-check the outputs. AI is fast, but it can hallucinate or misread context.
My workflow:
Start with a template — “Financial Dashboard.”
Enter the tickers or sectors you care about.
Let Labs build the dashboard, then tweak the charts or add custom metrics.
Export to Excel or share a live link with my team.
Mini-habit: I run a new Labs dashboard every Monday morning to spot trends before the market opens.
🔍 Four More Killer Use Cases
Here are four other ways I’ve used (and loved) it:
1. Market Research & Competitive Analysis
Prompt: “Compare top AI startups in Europe by funding, product, and team size.”
Labs pulls in the latest data, builds a table, and even visualizes trends.
2. Content Creation & Social Media Planning
Prompt: “Build a content calendar for LinkedIn posts in the SaaS space.”
Labs generates a full editorial plan, with suggested topics and posting times.
3. Business Operations & Project Management
Prompt: “Create a project tracker for our Q3 product launch.”
You get a Kanban board, Gantt chart, and automated reminders — all in one.
4. Academic Research & Education
Prompt: “Summarize the latest research on generative AI in healthcare.”
Labs find sources, builds a summary, and even create a bibliography for you.
📝 My Takeaway: The Builder’s Mindset
Here’s what I’ve learned: Tools like Labs won’t do your thinking for you. But they will give you superpowers — if you know how to ask the right questions. The future isn’t about who can click the fastest. It’s about who can build, automate, and ship ideas quicker than anyone else.
Mini-habits to try:
Each week, automate one report you used to do manually.
Use a template as a “jumping off point” — then tweak it for your workflow.
Share your Labs projects with your team, and get feedback. Collaboration is where the magic compounds.
🤔 Over to You
Curious what you’d build with Labs? Or maybe you’ve already tried it, and have tips to share. What’s the one workflow you wish you could automate right now?
Want access to more deep dives like this?
Just hit reply — I’m always up for a good geek-out.
Or hit reply if you want me to create a complete guide to Perplexity!