The news: As Google’s Chrome and DuckDuckGo integrate AI tools into their browsers, Perplexity has launched its own, built with agentic AI capabilities from the ground up—Comet.

Let’s break down the browser’s benefits, strong suits, and drawbacks.

What it is: Comet—which launched July 9 to Perplexity Max subscribers and October 2 to the general public—is Perplexity’s answer to an AI-first browser experience. The browser is promoted as a service that can act on user intent, navigate sites, surface answers, and interact with web pages using agentic AI that goes beyond passive search.

The pros: Built on Chromium, an open-source software project created and maintained by Google, Comet offers a smooth transition for Chrome users who can import bookmarks, extensions, and history with a few simple clicks.

The browser comes in a sleek, if somewhat blocky, design that lets users easily organize assistants and tabs through “spaces.”

• Users can create unlimited spaces, which can be as simple as roleplay for a job interview or more complex like getting Y Combinator-style advice on how to launch a startup.
• The AI assistant can also summarize pages, refine emails and connect with common apps like Google, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Slack.

One of Perplexity’s top focuses, and its biggest strength, is agentic shopping. When perusing products, Comet can take complex natural-language requests and surf review sites, listicles, and news articles to find top options.

The cons: Comet’s assistant can stumble on more complex tasks.

• When asked to explore women’s boots, identify options, and autonomously check out, it worked well until the final step, when it repeatedly hit errors on the checkout page.
• Similarly, when prompted to book a hotel with specific criteria (e.g., pet-friendly rooms), it reported being unable to connect to booking websites. That’s a critical gap in trip planning that ChatGPT is already addressing.

Comet processes data locally rather than in the cloud—a privacy plus. However, Perplexity states that the browser uses interaction data to improve performance and recommend content, though this can be turned off. Privacy skeptics may remain wary given Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas’ comments suggesting that the browser could collect user data for hyper-personalized ad tracking and sponsored content.

Our take: For users looking for an AI-first experience, Comet is a promising entry that blends active assistance with traditional web functions.

However, given Perplexity’s recent scaleback on advertiser initiatives and Comet’s lack of ads, AI search may not be the next frontier for ad formats. Continuing investments in traditional search options like Google Search, alongside generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies to surface in chatbot answers, is crucial to ensuring visibility.