Comet isn’t just another web browser – it’s Perplexity’s bold vision of what the internet experience should become: intelligent, proactive, automated. Launched in 2025, Comet is one of the most ambitious AI projects of the year, positioning itself not merely as a browser but as a task-solving companion. Built on Chromium, it supports the same web standards as Chrome or Edge and remains compatible with existing extensions. But that’s where the similarities end.
At the heart of Comet lies its integrated AI assistant – a sidebar-based, agentic companion capable of summarising websites, comparing products, booking appointments, and even composing emails. This approach, known as “agentic search,” goes well beyond what traditional voice assistants offer. Users don’t just input queries; they assign tasks. Planning a business trip? Comet can book your flights, select a hotel, summarise your itinerary and add it to your calendar – in a single seamless process, no tabs or manual copy-pasting required.
This new mode of interaction is powered by a hybrid AI model: local processes handle lightweight tasks with speed, while more complex ones are offloaded to the cloud. For privacy-conscious users, a “Local-Only” mode ensures data doesn’t leave the device. According to Perplexity, personal data such as calendar entries, emails or contacts are processed locally and never used to train their models.
At present, Comet is available only to subscribers of Perplexity’s new “Max” plan, priced at $200 per month, or to users who receive an invite. Pro subscribers are expected to gain access soon. This makes Comet a tool clearly targeted at power users – researchers, analysts, developers and decision-makers who navigate complex digital workflows daily and need intelligent support, not just another browser window.
What sets Comet apart is that it’s not trying to improve web search – it’s trying to replace it with something smarter. Rather than being reactive, it’s designed to anticipate, automate, and complete tasks across the web. Perplexity is already in talks with hardware partners like Motorola and Samsung to bring Comet to mobile platforms. Meanwhile, Google services like Gmail and Calendar are seamlessly integrated, despite Comet being positioned as a rival to Google Search.
In real-world use, Comet impresses with subtle but transformative features. The assistant doesn’t just analyse the open tab, but also reads context: your recent browsing history, open documents, pending tasks. It creates prioritised task lists – not just tracking what needs doing, but doing it. More than 800 app integrations are planned, aiming to turn Comet into a central productivity hub.
Critics point to the high price, limited availability and lack of a mobile app – all fair for a product still in its early phase. But the vision is clear: Comet isn’t a tweak of existing browsers, it’s an attempt to replace them with something fundamentally smarter – an AI-native interface between users and the web, where the browser becomes a thinking, acting partner rather than a passive tool.
Whether this vision takes off depends not just on the tech, but on users’ willingness to adopt a new way of interacting with digital information. But one thing is certain: with Comet, Perplexity has gone from search challenger to category pioneer – forging a new generation of software where artificial intelligence is no longer a feature, but the foundation. A browser that thinks – and acts.
