Comet, an AI-powered web browser built to take on Google Chrome, is now available free, the AI search company Perplexity said in a statement Thursday.
The browser was previously limited to subscribers to Perplexity Max and Pro. Comet no longer requires a subscription.
Unlike a traditional web browser, Comet has an AI assistant built in. It can be called at any point to answer questions about the page being looked at and can use its agent to click on the page and accomplish tasks for the user. Perplexity said Comet users were asking more questions than they had asked the company’s search tool before, with queries that didn’t resemble traditional online searches.
At a private event in San Francisco, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas also previewed Comet for mobile, showing off its agentic capabilities, which can accomplish tasks on behalf of the user. He further detailed new types of AI assistants, publishers participating in Comet Plus and a new research laboratory.
Comet’s worldwide release comes as AI players make moves in the web browser space. Previously, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic had released extensions for Chrome, giving people faster access to ChatGPT Search and Claude. But these were additions to existing browsers. Now, Perplexity is running to beat Google’s Chrome. Microsoft was also early in this race, releasing Copilot Mode in Edge this year. Google recently released Gemini in Chrome for AI Pro subscribers, which also brings much of the same functionality of Comet to the world’s most popular web browser.
Currently, Chrome dominates the web browser space with 72% global market share. Google’s dominance in Chrome allows the company to gather valuable user data, which it then uses to beef up Google Search and better sell placement to advertisers. Google’s dominance in Search was so vast that a federal court ruled the company to be operating an illegal monopoly. The Department of Justice wanted Chrome to be sold off as a potential remedy, but a US District Judge chose other remedies instead.
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OpenAI is rumored to be launching its own AI-powered web browser, likely integrating its powerful Operator AI agent.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
