Comet: Perplexity announces its own browser

Perplexity plans to release its browser soon. This is said to have been made for “agentic search”, which probably means that the browser has integrated so-called AI agents that can take over tasks for the user. However, it is unclear exactly what this will look like. Perplexity has so far only published a post on X in which they announce the browser with the name Comet.

The browser market is currently heavily dominated by Google. The vast majority of people use Chrome, but other browsers such as Microsoft's Edge or Opera are also based on Google's Chromium browser substructure. There is only real competition from Firefox and Safari. Whether Perplexity also relies on Chromium or has developed the browser itself from scratch remains to be seen. It is also conceivable that it is primarily an extended form of Perplexity's AI answer engine – which is what the company calls its service.

The AI agent at Perplexity is simply called Assistant. All major AI providers are currently releasing AI agents that are designed to perform tasks. These include, for example, booking a table in a restaurant. The trick, according to the providers, is that you only have to tell the agent this in natural language, and it then sets off on its own and finds ways to fulfill the order. For example, it uses screenshots to understand websites and to find out where an input field is and more.

Unclear when Comet will be released

Comet will therefore include such functions. “Browse with intelligence” is the motto on the website. However, it is still unclear exactly when the browser will be released. Perplexity has written another post on X in which they write that they are still looking for developers. There is a waiting list. If you register there, you will receive an email saying that more people are being accepted for the beta phase every week. If you want to get access faster, you should share the announcement on your social media channels. This is also a way to get cheap advertising through AI influencers.

Perplexity was founded by Aravind Srinivas, among others, who formerly worked at OpenAI. The main product so far is the AI answer engine. Ultimately, it is a search engine that is asked questions in natural language and does not provide a list of links in response, but a text in natural language. Links to the sources are also displayed. However, there have already been anomalies here and there with the accuracy of the links – some of which were even made up.

In addition, Perplexity is facing several complaints. The usual issue with generative AI is how models are trained and content is used. In addition, the monetization of the service is still unclear. Perplexity wants to launch an advertising program so that content creators benefit as soon as their information has been used for an AI response.

(emw)