Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.
In the battle of the browsers, the little AI upstart Perplexity is making a big move: its new Comet browser is blasting out of beta and into the hands of everyone, for free.
Three months ago, Comet was a VIP-only perk for the company’s $200-a-month Max subscribers. Now, after “millions” queued up on the waitlist, Perplexity is throwing open the airlock.
So what makes Comet different from the Chromes, Edges, and Safaris of the world?
Imagine a browser with a built-in co-pilot, a sidecar AI assistant that reads the page with you, answers your questions, summarizes articles, helps you navigate, and occasionally makes you wonder why you’ve been copy-pasting URLs into ChatGPT this whole time. That’s the free tier.
Comet also comes bundled with a toolbox of AI-flavored extras: Discover (think personalized news feed), Spaces (project management), Shopping (price-hunting), Travel (trip planning), Finance (budgeting and investments), and Sports (scores and updates).
Basically, it wants to be your browser, your planner, and your over-caffeinated personal assistant rolled into one.
But the real buzz is about the new “background assistant,” revealed this week by CEO Aravind Srinivas.
Exclusive to Max subscribers, it’s pitched as “a team of assistants working for you,” complete with a mission-control dashboard.
The idea: while you work, or wander off to make a sandwich, Comet quietly handles your errands.
It might draft an email, book you a flight, and even snag concert tickets before they sell out, then ping you when it’s done.
You still give final approval, but the legwork is outsourced to a digital helper that doesn’t complain about Ticketmaster queues.
Of course, Perplexity isn’t the only one shooting for the AI-browser crown. The Browser Company is pushing its own AI-infused Dia, and OpenAI has its own browser project in the works.
That means Comet has to prove its “agentic” magic isn’t just hype. Because if the assistant can’t actually save people time, most folks will stick with what they already know.
Is an AI browser that works in the background on your behalf a productivity dream or a privacy nightmare waiting to happen? Would you trust Perplexity’s assistant to book flights and buy tickets for you, or does handing over that much control feel like a step too far? Drop us a line below in the comments, or carry the discussion to our Twitter or Facebook.
Follow us on Flipboard, Google News, or Apple News
