Perplexity's New Browser Aims to Revolutionize User Data Collection for AI-Driven Advertising

Perplexity is building a browser in part to collect customer data for targeted ads

AI company Perplexity in February that it was building its own browser called Comet. In a recent with the TBPN podcast, CEO Aravind Srinivas gave some insight as to why the business appeared to be branching out from its artificial intelligence focus: It's to collect user data and sell them targeted advertisements. "That's kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you," he said. "We plan to use all the context to build a better user profile and, maybe you know, through our discover feed we could show some ads there." If that all sounds familiar, it could be become Google's Chrome browser has taken a similar approach. In fact, Comet is built on Chromium, the open-source browser base from Google. That's not to say Perplexity wouldn't take the chance to go straight to the source and acquire Chrome in the aftermath of Google's recent regarding online search. In the ongoing hearings about Google and its , Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko he thought Perplexity would be able to continue running the browser at its current scale. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't too keen on OpenAI the property.

AI Browser Will Track Every Single Thing You Do, CEO Reveals

Let's face it: internet ads are a fixture of life in the 21st century. Since 2002, Google has been rolling out features designed to monetize our browsing habits and feed our data to marketing companies hellbent on optimizing their advertising schemes. Now, AI company Perplexity wants to use AI to even further optimize the way it sucks up your data to sell at a profit. As spotted by TechCrunch, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said on a YouTube podcast earlier this week that his company is working on an AI browser with the goal of tracking users harder than any web browser has ever tracked before. "Once you understand the user deeply enough, the user can probably trust you if you show them relevant sponsored content, as long as it's super personalized and hyper-optimized to that user," Srinivas said of Perplexity's AI browser efforts. "If any of the AI companies could do that, I think that could be a thing where brands could pay a lot more money to advertise there." "We wanna get data, even outside the app to better understand you," Srinivas schemed, referring to tracking non-user data, as companies like Facebook and Google have been caught doing (and definitely still are, by the way.) "What are the things you're buying, which hotels are you going [to], which restaurants are you going to, what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you." Perplexity's AI browser is named Comet, first teased by the company back in February. As a relatively young piece of software, it's not yet clear what kind of surveillance Perplexity's browser is capable of, but its privacy policy currently includes disclosing personal information to advertisers, business partners, and other third parties. The company emphatically notes that it does not "sell" or "share" personal information "as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act" -- an oddly specific caveat. "Nor have we done so in the preceding 12 months." (It would be difficult to imagine how Comet is supposed to turn a profit on hyper-personal ad surveillance unless this line gets an update.) Privacy issues aside, Comet faces an uphill battle as it enters a turbulent market. The dominant player, Google -- arguably the godfather of data monetization -- has been recently declared a monopoly by a federal judge, and Perplexity isn't alone in trying to box Google out. Sam Altman's OpenAI is throwing its hat in the ring in the event that Google is forced to relinquish Chrome, in a move could provide OpenAI with an unfathomable amount of data to train its AI models and boost its own AI browser -- not to mention provide a huge revenue stream as Altman tries to take the company private. Other, smaller players in the game include the upcoming Dia by The Browser Company, and Wavebox, which are part of a growing wave of startups pushing AI-powered alternatives to the now slop-cluttered browsers we used to know and love. With all the bluster about "relevant sponsored content" and "hyper-optimized ads," the end game is clear: all these companies believe that with new AI tools, they'll be able to scrutinize every single thing you do in your browser -- and monetize it like never before.

Perplexity's Upcoming Browser Plans to Track Your Entire Digital Life

Perplexity's browser named Comet is all set to launch in May this year. Data privacy is a sensitive topic. While many show concerns about big tech collecting telemetry to "improve their products," there's also a few that couldn't care less. With the rise of AI, understanding the users and accessing their data has become a gold mine for data scraping and more common in recent years. Most tools require you to read their terms and conditions about data collection. So, Perplexity is taking an obscurely honest approach with its upcoming browser. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas appeared on the TBPN podcast yesterday, where he said one of the reasons the firm is building its own browser is to rigorously track and collect everything a user does, even outside the app. The goal is to collect as much data as possible to then sell premium ads. The justification that Srinivas gave is users use some prompts for work-related purposes which are not personal. Besides, Perplexity will track things like your visits to places, browsing time, websites, and everything else you do in and outside the browser. He also claims Perplexity users should be fine with tracking because the ads will be more relevant. While these statements about data collection might seem a bit direct, it's reminiscent of how the internet has always worked. Firms like Google and Meta track you across the internet with different aspects of search and location for targeted advertisements. The list includes Apple as well. It's exactly why the US DOJ wants Google to sell off Chrome, due to monopoly in advertising. The browser business gets you a lot of data and capital via better targeted ads. That's exactly why OpenAI wants to buy Chrome. Perplexity is starting to partner with smartphone manufacturers to include a deeper integration with its AI assistant. The recent partnership being with Motorola and its Moto AI. Rules around data scraping are still pretty gray, raising privacy and copyright infringement concerns. The recent Ghibli image incidents are a good example. It's one of the reasons for the increasing distrust in big tech. That's also because the current privacy rules don't have a set of borders defining where these AI firms can go or tread. It begs a question. In a world where AI assistants follow us everywhere, how much privacy are we really prepared to give up for convenience? What are your thoughts on Perplexity wanting to track you across everything? Let us know in the comments.