- Perplexity’s new Comet browser promises an AI assistant that travels the web for you
- Comet joins other AI browsers aiming to beat Chrome and other popular platforms.
- Though AI companies are betting on their browser's enticing users, their mainstream appeal is uncertain.
Perplexity has officially made the move to web browsers, embedding its AI tools into Comet, its new Chromium browser.
It’s available now, initially only to some subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-a-month Max plan. At first glance, Comet is like most browsers, but Comet has a unique sidebar. You can highlight a word, sentence, or image, and Comet will discuss it with you. You can get a summary of an article, write an RSVP, or organize the itinerary of your next vacation. There's also a privacy benefit. Perplexity says all of the AI processing stays local and that it won’t train its AI using your site visits.
It makes sense. Browsers are central to modern work and life. If AI models can latch onto our browsing flow, then we will be using them all the time. But will it stick?
The browser space has seen a lot of failed Chrome clones, from Yahoo Browser to Internet Explorer 6. Chrome and Safari claim over 90% market share globally. The subscription price alone might be the biggest deterrent. Perplexity’s Comet is $200 a month. Compared to the price of 'free,' it would take a lot more than an occasional paper summary to make people pay up.
And while Comet shows how it might be useful as a way for Perplexity to meld its AI with a web browser, it's hardly alone in pursuing the idea of augmenting web browsers with AI. OpenAI is building a ChatGPT-native Operator browser. Currently, The Browser Company, Opera's Aria, Microsoft's Edge with Copilot, and others are all providing similar services. And Google is continuously adding AI to Chrome, offering quick overviews, summaries, and image explanations.
AI browsing future
Perplexity, OpenAI, and any other contender face the same challenge of getting people to switch. And while it's possible that Perplexity breaks through to a new group of users with the idea of an AI browser, they will then have to face off against each other as well as the AI-enhanced versions of Chrome, Safari, and the others on the rise from Brave to Firefox, each with their own pitch for a better AI, more privacy, or another appealing feature.
Or, maybe the concerns about technical issues and user privacy will keep the AI browser a niche product with limited appeal for hardcore users, a bit like Linux. AI might be the future of browsing, a brief fad, or something in between.
The question of what makes it worth the effort will need to be answered. If Comet and others can streamline the online experience and save us a lot of time, they'll be popping up everywhere, but for now, they’re novelties priced at a premium. We'll have to see if the AI-enhanced browser can find the users it needs to last.
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