Perplexity's Comet AI Browser Goes Free Worldwide, Challenging Traditional Web Browsing

Perplexity's Comet AI browser now free; Max users get new 'background assistant' | TechCrunch

AI search startup Perplexity is making its new Comet browser available to everyone in the world for free as it works to position the product against big browsers and search engines. For certain paid subscribers, the startup has also launched a new "background assistant" to handle multiple tasks via Comet. Perplexity first launched Comet to subscribers of its $200-per-month Max plan three months ago, and since then, "millions" have signed up on the waitlist to download the browser. Comet's main feature is a sidecar assistant that joins you while you browse, helping to answer any questions you may have about the web page you're on, summarize content, manage web content, and navigate web pages on your behalf. Perplexity's move to make Comet free comes as the startup fights to compete against both incumbents like Google Chrome and newcomers like The Browser Company's AI-powered browser Dia. It also comes ahead of OpenAI's much-anticipated AI-powered browser launch. In the face of such competition, Perplexity will need to prove that Comet's agentic capabilities work reliably. Because without tangible productivity gains, people might be less inclined to switch from their existing browsers. For free users, Perplexity's Comet browser experience is still limited to the sidecar assistant. All users can also access different tools like Discover (personalized news and content recommendations similar to OpenAI's new Pulse); Spaces (to organize and manage different projects); Shopping (assists in comparing prices and finding deals across online retailers); Travel (offers aggregated information on travel destinations, flights, accommodation, etc); Finance (tools for budgeting, tracking expenses, monitoring investments); and Sports (updates on scores, schedules, and news). Max users get access to high-performing AI models and can access Perplexity's email assistant, which promises to draft replies and write responses that match your tone; organize and prioritize your inbox; schedule meetings; and answer questions about your inbox. Max users also get early access to Perplexity products and features, including a new "background assistant" that CEO Aravind Srinivas announced at an event Wednesday evening. A company spokesperson described the assistant as "a team of assistants working for you" that you can manage and track from a central dashboard like a "mission control." The assistant performs multiple tasks on your computer in the background while you do other work or walk away to make a sandwich. In an example a spokesperson gave me, you could give the assistant a task to send an email, add the cheapest tickets to a concert to your cart, and find the best direct flight on a specific date and time. You can check the progress of the task completion in the dashboard and jump in to complete the tasks - like hitting send on the email, intervening, or taking over. The assistant will notify you when it has finished its task. The background assistant also has "better connectors," so it can access other apps on your computer, per the spokesperson. TechCrunch asked for more specifics about use cases and where the background assistant thrives. Free Comet users can also purchase a $5-per-month standalone subscription to Comet Plus, a forthcoming product that aims to provide an AI-enhanced alternative to Apple News. Pro users (who pay $20-per-month for advanced AI models, image and video generation, file upload and analysis, etc.) and Max users will get access to Comet Plus automatically.

Perplexity's Comet AI Web Browser Is Now Available to Everyone

Imad is a senior reporter covering Google and internet culture. Hailing from Texas, Imad started his journalism career in 2013 and has amassed bylines with The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN, Tom's Guide and Wired, among others. Comet, an AI-powered web browser built to take on Google Chrome, is now available for free, the AI search company Perplexity said in a press release on 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 are 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 earlier 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 opted for other remedies instead. (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.)

Everyone can use Perplexity's Comet AI browser now - for free

Comet is now available globally for free.It debuted in July for $200-per-month.It's part of a broader industry effort to AI-ify browsers. Perplexity announced Thursday that its AI-powered web browser, Comet, is now available everywhere for free. Launched in July through the company's $200-per-month Perplexity Max service, the browser comes with a built-in AI agent that can track users' browsing activity and interact with third-party websites and apps. Perplexity has marketed its new browser as a more intuitive, dynamic, and engaging alternative to traditional browsers like Chrome and Safari, which the company has painted as antiquated, one-way portals to the internet -- though Gemini is now integrated directly with Chrome. Also: Perplexity's Comet AI browser could expose your data to attackers - here's how Comet is positioned as an AI companion that gently tugs on people's innate inquisitiveness as they navigate the web, leading them to discover new and unexpected information. "Comet is a browser that learns with the user and enables them to go deeper where it matters most," a Perplexity spokesperson told ZDNET. "Over time, it becomes a second brain, powering discovery, curiosity, and action." Millions of people have signed up to access Comet since its July debut, according to the spokesperson. All Perplexity free, Pro, and Plus users can try it starting today by downloading it here. Google Chrome and Apple-owned Safari have long been the world's most popular web browsers by a significant margin, but Perplexity has been pushing aggressively to attract users to Comet and, by extension, to its broader vision of a paradigm shift in the very nature of browsing. Last month, for example, the company offered a free trial of Comet to students, as well as a free year for PayPal and Venmo users. Also: 5 reasons I use local AI on my desktop - instead of ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude In an op-ed published last month in Arena, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srivinas argued that the rise of AI was ushering in a new era for humanity, "the Question Age," in which the barriers to pursuing one's curiosity and thus gaining a deeper collective understanding of the universe would be lower than ever before in history. "In an age where AI holds nearly limitless information," he writes, "the people who thrive will be those who never run out of questions. The great industrialists, the leading capitalists, the winners of this new era will all be the most curious." Other tech developers have also been investing in AI-powered web browsers, driven by the idea that people in the future will prefer to interact with agents to help them find information online, as opposed to being left to their own devices. Also: Do you get your news from AI? Who is - and isn't, according to Pew Research Software giant Atlassian, for example, recently purchased The Browser Company for a reported value of $610 million and with the goal of giving a major AI upgrade to the Dia browser, specifically with an eye toward selling the new browser to knowledge workers. Google, meanwhile, has begun rolling out Gemini in Chrome -- the company's flagship generative AI chatbot can respond to user questions about open webpages and perform tasks that require pulling information from across multiple tabs.

Perplexity's Comet browser is available everywhere

After launching to subscribers willing to fork out hundreds of dollars a month this summer, Perplexity's agentic AI browser Comet is now available to everyone for free. "The internet is better on Comet," the company says, promising to remain free forever as it styles the browser as a serious challenger to Google's Chrome. Comet puts AI at the heart of the browsing experience. It incorporates Perplexity's AI search tools and a personal AI assistant that, in the company's words, actually "travels the web with" users, instead of being "tacked onto a traditional browser." It's supposed to make surfing the web simpler and help you with tasks like shopping, booking trips, and general life admin. To borrow the company's words again: you "get more done." The AI-powered browser launched in July, though was only available for users who subscribed to the $200 per month Perplexity Max plan. Later, Perplexity expanded this to include "select" subscribers of its cheaper Pro plan and lucky invitees on what the company says is now a millions-strong waitlist. No subscription at all will be needed to use Comet going forward, the company says. As well as its browser, Perplexity is making its Comet Plus content available for free too. The program, which launched in August as a standalone $5-a-month subscription, gives users access to curated news content in a scheme CEO Aravind Srinivas likened to Apple's Apple News+. Perplexity is not alone in its quest to bring AI to the internet. Google has infused Gemini into Chrome, The Browser Company -- the makers of the Arc browser -- is going all in on Dia, and Opera just launched its own AI browser, Neon.

Perplexity's Comet AI browser is now free for everyone

Perplexity's Comet AI browser is now free for everyone worldwide. The browser had previously only been available to Perplexity Max users . The company says that it has "become the most sought-after browser on the internet with millions signed up to the waitlist." Now that waitlist is gone and everyone can get to downloading. Perplexity went on to note that this isn't a limited-time promotion as Comet "will always be free." For the uninitiated, Comet is a browser that uses Perplexity AI as the default search engine. A chatbot accompanies each search in the sidebar and users can ask it to answer questions, summarize text and, in some cases, take actions like sending emails or looking up directions. Comet pulls information from the web and correlates that data into AI-generated responses, so make sure to double-check the important stuff. This is just the latest step for the company. Perplexity is currently working on a mobile version of the browser and an integrative AI assistant. It's also far from the only company stuffing AI into a web browser. Comet joins and in this effort.

Perplexity AI rolls out Comet browser for free worldwide

Aravind Srinivas, chief executive officer Perplexity AI, during a news conference at the SK Telecom Co. headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, Sept.4, 2024. Perplexity AI on Thursday announced that its artificial-intelligence-powered web browser Comet is available worldwide, and will be free to users. The Comet browser is designed to serve as a personal assistant that can search the web, organize tabs, draft emails, shop and more, according to Perplexity. The startup initially launched Comet in July to Perplexity Max subscribers for $200 a month, and the waitlist has ballooned to "millions" of people, the company said. Perplexity's decision to provide Comet for free could help it attract more users as it works to fend off rivals like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic that have their own AI browser offerings. In September, Google rolled out Gemini in its Chrome browser, Anthropic announced a browser-based AI agent in August and OpenAI announced Operator, an agent that uses a browser to complete tasks, in January. Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google's Chrome browser in August.

Perplexity's $200-a-month 'AI' Comet browser is now free

Comet can now be used without a subscription or an invite, though the various "agentic" goodies are still rate-limited for free users. Would you like a browser that browses the web for you? Presumably excluding malware or other nasty stuff that's been a concern for decades? Then Perplexity's Comet "AI" browser might be for you...though the $200-a-month price tag for the company's "Max" plan might not. But now it's free, with some big limits. The Comet browser was always intended to be a free competitor to Chrome and other browsers, though it started out locked behind that massive "AI" paywall. (In fact, Perplexity is so committed to the browser bit that it briefly entertained buying Chrome from Google, before the U.S. government decided that antitrust laws are more like guidelines.) As of today it's free for anyone to use, along with its LLM-powered Sidecar feature, according to TechCrunch. Though the download site still indicates you either need a subscription or an invitation to use it, I was able to download and install it without logging in. But in order to get the full powers of the browser, you'll still need that $200-a-month subscription. Without it you're rate-limited for its various tools, including text generation, shopping, and even logging in and "browsing" using your identity. Just be careful -- like many LLM tools it has some rather glaring security issues. Chris Hoffman tried out Comet in an extended test, and found it interesting but pretty barebones once you get beyond the "agentic AI" features. "Comet doesn't feel designed to be your day-to-day browser -- as it is right now, it's more of a flashy demo," he says.

An AI Company Just Made Its $200-a-Month Product Totally Free

Comet offers AI summaries from "high-quality" sourcing with an "assistant" built in. In July, AI startup Perplexity, valued at around $20 billion, launched an AI browser called Comet. The $200-a-month service offered a search engine with AI-generated summaries (focused on high-quality sources) and an "assistant" built into the browser that can automate web searching and other tasks. Now, it's free. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told Business Insider on Wednesday: "We want to build a better internet, and that needs to be accessible to everybody." Comet can access apps like Gmail, LinkedIn, and your calendar to automate everyday tasks, including drafting replies to emails and scheduling appointments. Srinivas told The Verge's "Decoder" podcast in July that he believes the browser can become your personal or executive assistant. Related: Perplexity CEO Says AI Coding Tools Cut Work Time From 'Four Days to Literally One Hour' Meanwhile, this week, Meta and OpenAI each launched AI-generated video feeds, which are being called creative "AI slop." OpenAI's Sora 2, for example, allows users to create videos of themselves doing anything, basically creating a collection of on-purpose deepfakes. Srinivas thinks Comet can stand out based on its "research paper quality" sourcing, and partnerships with top journalism outlets. At one time, Perplexity said Comet had "millions" on a waitlist. "I think slop is fundamentally going to be easier to create now, and it's going to be hard to distinguish if something is AI or human on the internet," Srinivas said, per Business Insider. Google has also deployed AI additions into its Chrome browser with "AI mode" and "AI search," which TechCrunch notes has a "striking resemblance" to Perplexity.

Perplexity AI makes Comet browser free for everyone - The Economic Times

Perplexity AI has made its Comet browser free for all users, as announced by CEO Aravind Srinivas. The company also introduced Comet Plus, a new subscription for news consumption featuring content from major publishers like CNN and The Washington Post. Publishers will be compensated from a $42.5 million revenue pool for their content.Perplexity AI has made its Comet browser free for all users in the world, cofounder and chief executive Aravind Srinivas announced on Thursday. The Comet browser is now available to free, Pro and Max users, said in a post on X. Srinivas also took covers off Comet Plus, which will be a new subscription plan for both humans and AIs to consume news. In the first leg, Comet Plus will host content from CNN, Conde Nast (publishers of The New Yorker, Wired, Architectural Digest and others), Fortune, Le Figaro, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. As announced in August, the participating publishers will be paid for user engagement, user agent actions, and indexing of content. Perplexity will pay them out of a $42.5 million revenue pool for the news it uses to answer queries, Wall Street Journal had reported. Comet Plus will come with a $5 standalone subscription, or bundled with Perplexity Pro and Max.

Perplexity Makes AI-Powered Browser Available to All at No Cost | PYMNTS.com

Comet was launched in a limited release on July 9 and since then has had a waitlist joined by "millions of people," the company said in a Thursday (Oct. 2) blog post. The browser includes the Comet Assistant, which can help with research, meetings, code and eCommerce while the user is browsing the internet, according to the post. Perplexity also announced in its blog post the launch of Background Assistants, which are AI assistants that can work in the browser, the inbox or the background. The company will also make Comet available as a mobile app "soon," per the post. The browser is currently desktop-only. When introducing Comet in July, Perplexity said in a blog post that the AI-powered browser "transforms entire browsing sessions into single, seamless interactions, collapsing complex workflows into fluid conversations." During the July introduction, Perplexity made Comet available to subscribers of Perplexity Max, which costs $200 a month, CNBC reported Thursday. By making Comet available for free, the company will be better able to compete with other AI-powered browsers, such as those available from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. Perplexity announced in a Wednesday (Oct. 1) blog post the first publishers to participate in Comet Plus, its service that gives users and their AI assistants access to participating publishers' journalism and compensates the publishers for that access. Comet Plus is available as a $5 standalone subscription or at no additional cost with a Perplexity Pro or Max subscription, according to the post. "As users demand a better internet in the age of AI, it's time for a business model to ensure that publishers and journalists benefit from their contributions to a better internet," the company said in a blog post.