Perplexity's AI browser Comet launches on iOS

Comet is now available for iOS and iPadOS: Perplexity's AI browser can be downloaded from Apple's App Store, as the provider announced. Features include "hybrid search results" that augment classic web searches with AI summaries and follow-up questions. Users can also ask the browser questions about open tabs in voice mode – or directly compare information across multiple open web pages. The research functions known from Perplexity and other chatbots are also included.

Agentic Browser only with Workaround

The browser can be synchronized with the desktop version of Comet, which has been available for macOS and Windows for a long time. The app also works as a "personal AI assistant" and can perform actions for the user, the provider promises. This includes, for example, researching your own calendar – provided you give the app full access.

A special feature of such AI browsers is that they are also supposed to perform actions on the web, such as the usually annoying search for flights. On iOS, Perplexity could apparently only implement these agentic browser functions with a workaround: If you instruct the app to research specific products on Amazon and add them to the shopping cart, it resorts to a virtual browser instance in the cloud. Among other things, the cookies are sent to the Perplexity cloud, as Macstories describes the procedure, referring to a warning dialog in the app. On other operating systems, the AI assistant clicks directly in the local browser; Perplexity may not have been able to implement this due to limitations in iOS.

Extended Functions Require Perplexity Subscription

Like all other iOS browsers, Comet must rely on Apple's WebKit engine under the hood. The browser is free, only approved from 18 years old, and requires a Perplexity subscription for advanced AI functions, which costs from 22 Euros per month. This unlocks, among other things, access to current AI models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

(lbe)