AI startup Perplexity has been hitting a brand new milestone nearly each different week now. The firm’s most up-to-date one was making its Comet browser typically out there to everybody without spending a dime, eradicating the sooner $200 month-to-month entry restriction.
Along with the free rollout, the corporate has additionally launched Comet Plus, an optionally paid improve — round $5 a month — providing curated information content material from media companions. Earlier, Comet was out there solely to high-tier “Max” customers or through invitation. I used to be a kind of early invitees, and so had a while to experiment with the browser.
Though I’m nonetheless experimenting and testing completely different use instances with this software, one factor is obvious — Comet will clearly change the best way folks will search online. Let me clarify how. For practically three a long time, we’ve been used to a search interface that responded with a dozen blue hyperlinks for a set of enter key phrases.
Over time, about three of these prime hyperlinks grew to become advertisements, adopted by a Wikipedia hyperlink after which information from acknowledged media sources. Perplexity is upending this mannequin by making the browser a question-and-answer interface — and to some extent a question-answer-action interface.
The shift means that Perplexity views Comet as a foundational platform relatively than a distinct segment, high-price providing. And now, by giving it to extra customers, without spending a dime, it’s making its basis agency and scalable. The timing and construction sign confidence in scale and utilization over margin per consumer.
A private assistant
So, how do I use this browser to complete some tasks and automate a number of others? The magic is within the assistant button nestled up on the sidebar or in-page software. You can use this for essentially the most primary AI tasks like summarizing textual content on a webpage, extracting key factors, asking for translation help, evaluating a number of sources, and asking questions to get contextually related info.
I additionally used Comet browser to triage my inbox and parse calendar occasions. For this, I had to arrange a widget and permit Comet to join with my electronic mail inbox. I strongly suggest that you just set this up with a brand new ‘professional’ or ‘test’ electronic mail tackle as Perplexity, per its phrases of use, shops your information in its server to present this service. So, it’s greatest not to use your private account to take a look at this characteristic.
Using the connector operate, Perplexity scans my inbox and filters emails based mostly on timing and precedence, after which suggests actions to be taken. After this, if I decide a selected electronic mail, the AI agent drafts a response. The response wasn’t ok, so I made a decision towards utilizing it and drafted my very own. But, I assume it is going to solely be a matter of time earlier than the responses get higher because the AI will get extra particulars about my utilization and magnificence of the inbox.
Now, as a result of Comet is constructed on Chromium, customers can retain entry to extensions and acquainted hooks, making adoption simpler. Another a part of the pitch from Comet is that it might “live” in your searching, tracing context throughout tabs, remembering your prior queries, and surfacing insights or help in the intervening time of want. I’m but to take a look at this characteristic totally, so I can’t share a lot about it. But what Comet goals to do with this characteristic is cut back friction in analysis, choice making, multitasking, and synthesis whilst you surf.
Product comparisons and mapping assistant
Another fascinating space to use Comet is if you need to examine the value of a selected product on a number of e-commerce websites. I attempted this once I was looking for a swimming goggles on one e-commerce website. All I had to do was sort in a immediate asking the assistant to search for the value of the identical product on different platforms and spotlight the positioning the place it’s out there on the lowest promoting worth. In lower than two minutes, Comet Assistant, scoured the online and located a deal that was a grand lesser than what I discovered in a single e-commerce website.
While I’m persevering with to take a look at different methods to use this comparability characteristic, I discovered Comet to be a terrific software to map a route in a brand new metropolis. For occasion, you may ask it to provide the driving instructions from level A to level B on Google Maps, after which ask it to embrace a spot to cease for a fast espresso. With that immediate, it is going to give a step-by-step route and some locations to cease for a espresso. The actual magic occurred once I requested it to present the way it works on the maps interface I had opened within the Comet browser.
The AI agent rapidly began to replace the webpage and complete the route planning with choices for a espresso break.
These are simply among the use instances I’ve examined, and like I stated earlier, there are much more to experiment and take a look at. And whereas all this seems nice, one should perceive that these instruments may also regularly absorb all of our information, so I strongly suggest customers not to use their private electronic mail accounts or share any private information with these AI instruments.
In brief, for a person consumer, Comet is supposed to be your “agentic browser” — the browser that not solely reveals you pages however helps you do issues with them.
Published – October 07, 2025 08:00 am IST