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.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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.
Tune in at 8:10 a.m. ET Friday as Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas joins CNBC TV to discuss the release of its AI browser Comet to users for free. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.
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 unveiled 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 is best known for its AI-powered search engine that gives users simple answers to questions and links out to the original source material on the web. After the company was accused of plagiarizing content from media outlets, it launched a revenue-sharing model with publishers last year.
The company also introduced Comet Plus in August, which is a subscription that gives users access to content from “trusted publishers and journalists,” according to a blog post. Perplexity said Tuesday that CNN, Condé Nast, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Le Monde and Le Figaro are its inaugural publishing partners.
Perplexity said additional features are also on the way. The company teased a mobile version of Comet and a feature called Background Assistant, which can work on multiple tasks simultaneously and asynchronously.
