This may well be the world’s first ‘AI browser’ but will certainly not be the last. AI company Perplexity has played its cards with Comet, which CEO Aravind Srinivas says is “designed to be a thought partner and assistant”. Comet, currently rolling out for Windows PCs and Mac computing devices, may well be the spark that would see a response soon enough with expectations that Sam Altman’s OpenAI may be close to launching its own AI web browser in the coming weeks.
There are three tenets on which Perplexity is attempting to develop Comet — personalisation, powerful functionality, and productivity. The default search engine for Comet will be Perplexity’s own, and for now, Comet access is limited to subscribers on the $200 per month Perplexity Max plan. Srinivas insists that will change with time. Next, the AI browser access will be unlocked for Pro subscribers and finally for all users. Srinivas points out in a post on X that the waitlist has already crossed the 450,000 mark.
You may be wondering — what is an AI browser? Think of this as an evolution of the Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Apple Safari or Vivaldi web browsers that you already use today, but with a much deeper integration of artificial intelligence capabilities. Traditional browsers too have some layer of AI brought in by integrated functionality and add-ons (such as Gemini in Google Chrome), that add functionality including web page summarisation or answering specific questions from the content you’re viewing. But scope is limited.
In contrast, Comet and AI browsers in general are expected to widen the scope and include a conversational interface with integrated large language models (LLMs) which will be multimodal, computer vision to analyse media on the web, and enable task automation as well — such as buying products if it matches a set price from your wishlist, or book tickets for your next travel. Comet’s built-in capabilities will be able to answer questions based on anything you see on the screen at that time. This may, in a way, also be the closest consumers would have come to ‘agentic AI’, for now.
{{/usCountry}}In contrast, Comet and AI browsers in general are expected to widen the scope and include a conversational interface with integrated large language models (LLMs) which will be multimodal, computer vision to analyse media on the web, and enable task automation as well — such as buying products if it matches a set price from your wishlist, or book tickets for your next travel. Comet’s built-in capabilities will be able to answer questions based on anything you see on the screen at that time. This may, in a way, also be the closest consumers would have come to ‘agentic AI’, for now.
{{/usCountry}}“Max tier will be able to run repetitive agent queries on the most advanced models with nearly infinite limits. World will adapt to this change. Access won’t be restricted however to Max,” writes Srinivas, in a response to a user query regarding the $200 per month that it costs for now to run agentic AI tasks. Srinivas says the infrastructure requirements to unlock this access for all users, is being worked on. “Infra is not as easy as we thought,” he writes.
Perplexity insists this browser has been built from the ground up, unlike current generation browsers that have had to integrate some layers of AI. For instance, users will be able to access Comet Assistant on any web page from the sidebar, which would allow for it to view what’s on that web page and answer any questions a user may have. Perplexity also talks about a personalised AI experience, but without having used the Comet browser yet, it is difficult to judge this aspect or the promise it may hold.
For task automation specifically, Perplexity already has a product developed over time as part of the AI chatbot, to integrate within Comet. “Automated Tasks on Perplexity that can be set with simple natural language is quite underrated. We will be bringing this feature on Comet. So, your browser will turn into a mini-OS with smart cron jobs that run your life while removing cognitive burden. The Cognitive OS,” says Srinivas.
For search, Comet using Perplexity search engine will challenge Google’s search dominance too. Within Comet, this will underline core functionality such as generating summaries from web pages, web files and search results. In previous months, Perplexity has deals in place with phone makers Samsung and Motorola to give Perplexity’s AI footprint the preloaded advantage on their phones. In Samsung’s newly launched Galaxy phones for instance, Perplexity will be the default search engine within the Samsung Browser app.
It may be interesting to see if Perplexity makes a Comet browser app for Android phones as well as the Apple iPhone. It may be difficult to bet against it.