Perplexity is building an AI browser called Comet

Perplexity already changed how millions of people look up information by skipping the traditional list of blue links in favor of direct AI answers. Now, the startup wants to own the entire window you use to view the web.

Perplexity officially announced on X that it is building Comet, a brand new web browser designed from the ground up around "agentic search." The company opened an early-access waitlist, though it has not yet shared an official launch date.

Moving from answering questions to doing the work

While Perplexity’s teaser was short on screenshots, the phrase "agentic search" speaks volumes about where the product is headed.

Instead of acting like a glorified sidebar extension, Comet aims to let AI act directly on the web on your behalf.

Sid Sharma, an AI developer at Agora Labs, pointed out that agentic search means the browser could handle end-to-end workflows. Imagine navigating pages hands-free via real-time voice, researching products across multiple storefronts, and letting the browser handle booking a flight or hotel reservation without you clicking through five different tabs.

Industry watchers also anticipate that Comet will bring native page summarization, intelligent tab organization, and automated security scanning straight into the core browsing engine.

Taking the fight straight to Chrome

Perplexity has been moving at breakneck speed since its founding in 2022.

The startup raised $500 million at a $9 billion valuation in December, and it claims to handle over 100 million search queries every single week. In just the past two months, Perplexity has shipped an Android assistant, an enterprise search API, and a deep research tool aimed directly at Google and OpenAI.

Still, building a browser means wading into hostile territory. Google Chrome completely dominates the market, Microsoft has loaded Edge with Copilot features, and The Browser Company is already prepping its own AI-first browser, Dia. On top of that, Perplexity is still fighting copyright lawsuits from publishers like News Corp and The New York Post over how it scrapes web content.

Why it matters

For power users and researchers, a truly agentic browser could eliminate the annoying gap between finding an answer and executing a task. If Comet can reliably complete multi-step actions across complex websites without breaking, it saves real time. But right now, it is just a waitlist, and handing browser-level control to an autonomous agent raises obvious questions about privacy, credentials, and reliability.

For the tech landscape, this is about survival. As long as Perplexity lives inside Chrome, Google holds all the cards and can nudge users back to its own AI overviews. By building Comet, Perplexity is trying to secure its own distribution channel and make its search engine the undisputed default.

We think launching a browser is an incredibly gutsy move, but history shows that unseating Chrome is nearly impossible. Perplexity has a massive, loyal base of information workers who love its speed. However, convincing those same people to ditch their daily browser setup for an unproven new platform will be a massive uphill battle. Comet needs to prove its agent can actually do the heavy lifting, not just generate clever summaries.