Comet is More Than a Browser
In a digital landscape long dominated by Google Chrome, a new contender has entered the arena with a bold vision for the future of browsing. Perplexity AI, best known for its conversational search engine, has unveiled Comet, an AI-native browser that promises to fundamentally change how people interact with the web. Officially launched in July 2025 and made free for everyone globally in October, Comet is more than a browser—it’s a personalized digital companion that travels with you as you explore, read, and work online.
What sets Comet apart from the likes of Chrome, Edge, or Safari is its DNA. Artificial intelligence isn’t an add-on or extension—it’s built into the core. The browser integrates Perplexity’s powerful AI assistant directly into the interface, available in a sidebar that can summarize pages, answer questions, and even execute multi-step tasks. Instead of providing a list of search results, Comet often generates direct answers with citations. It remembers your browsing context, understands what you’ve been doing, and can connect ideas across multiple tabs.
Comet’s features read like a roadmap for the next generation of web tools. There’s Comet Assistant, a conversational companion that reads and distills content from articles, PDFs, or reports. There’s instant summarization, allowing you to grasp a 2,000-word piece in a few lines. And then there are agentic workflows, where users can ask Comet to perform actions—like comparing hotels, scheduling a meeting, or drafting an email—and the browser handles it step by step. Even tab management gets a rethink: related pages can be grouped into smart workspaces, reducing clutter and maintaining context across sessions.
Visually, Comet feels familiar yet distinct. Built on Chromium, it supports Chrome extensions and basic design conventions. But where Chrome feels static, Comet feels alive. Its sleek interface minimizes visual noise and keeps the AI assistant subtly accessible on every page. The experience aims to be frictionless—your browser becomes a workspace, research partner, and assistant rolled into one. For anyone accustomed to juggling dozens of tabs or shifting between apps to get work done, Comet’s unified environment can feel like a revelation.
The pricing model has evolved rapidly. When first announced, Comet was restricted to users on Perplexity’s $200-a-month “Max” plan and a select few beta testers. By October 2025, the company made the browser free for everyone, signaling a push for mass adoption. Still, premium features—like continuous “Background Assistant” tasks or integration with curated journalism sources—remain exclusive to paying subscribers. It’s a balance between accessibility and sustainability, and it suggests Perplexity plans to monetize through professional use rather than casual browsing.
Supporters say Comet delivers a level of productivity unmatched by traditional browsers. Researchers, writers, and professionals who spend hours online can summarize, compare, and cross-reference without leaving their tabs. The browser’s seamless integrations with Gmail and Google Calendar make it easy to manage work without toggling between tools. And because search itself becomes conversational, users spend less time clicking links and more time getting results. In an age of digital overload, that feels refreshing.
But not everything about Comet shines as brightly as its branding. Early adopters report that the browser can feel sluggish when AI functions are active—especially when summarizing long pages or handling multimedia content. The interface, though elegant, occasionally confuses newcomers with its mix of natural-language prompts and hidden controls. Most importantly, Comet has faced scrutiny over privacy and security. Reports of vulnerabilities, including a “CometJacking” exploit that exposed user data through malicious URLs, raised alarms about the risks of giving a browser so much control and context.
In the competitive browser market, Comet isn’t alone in its ambitions. Google is quietly infusing Chrome with more AI features, Microsoft has transformed Edge into an AI-powered hub, and smaller players like Arc and Opera are experimenting with their own assistants. What differentiates Comet is how far it goes. It doesn’t just help you search—it tries to act on your behalf. Whether that level of automation feels empowering or invasive may depend on personal preference.
For now, Comet represents the most complete attempt yet to reimagine browsing as a two-way collaboration rather than a passive activity. It reflects a shift in philosophy: the browser as a thinking partner, not just a viewing tool. It raises important questions about how much autonomy we give to AI, how it interprets what we read, and who controls the flow of information we consume.
The verdict? Comet is ambitious, intelligent, and undeniably forward-looking. It’s not perfect—performance issues and privacy concerns linger—but it hints at what the next era of the internet might look like: dynamic, conversational, and increasingly agentic. Whether it becomes a mainstream success or remains a niche tool for power users, one thing is clear—Comet has reignited the imagination of what a web browser can be.
