Perplexity has just started an agent's response to Google Chrome. This was called Comet and knocked out the slate of the task on my behalf, but I think I was able to make myself faster. The new AI-powered browser is currently only available via Perplexity Max subscribers or early access waitlists, and is supposed to simplify the way you browse the web by actually injecting AI into everything.
One replaces Google search results with the confusing AI “Answer Engine” that appears in the browser window when you enter a query into the address bar. Unlike typical search engines, Prplexity first surfaces a link to the related website and then generates information about what you are looking for. The search results for Comet's distillation are useful to narrow down the results, but it's a bit offensive to not see a large selection of websites proposed by Google.
Comet has an AI assistant built in, similar to the Gemini integration Google is testing with Chrome. choice assistant A button in the top right corner of your browser opens the sidebar with a chat interface. From here you can enter queries, chat about various topics using voice modes, and ask specific questions about the web page.
Comet can generate article summary, describe images, summarise YouTube videos, and run further research on eye-catching topics. You can also scan all the open tabs to provide a summary of those pages and compare their products.
At this point, these are all pretty standard features of AI tools, but what really sets a comet apart is its ability to complete tasks on your behalf. After linking my Google account to my browser, I found it scary fast to generate and send emails to myself, including a summary of the outlook for this year's hurricane season. The browser also quickly complied with requests to close all tabs that were not open for more than 15 minutes. I have written and published a post on my X account on my behalf of the Google Events.
We have requested to unsubscribe from promotional emails sent by Fubo or Fanatics.com. I saw Comet's AI assistant walking through the process. In the chat interface, Comet shows you what you are “looking” when you find a recent email sent by a company, find the unsubscribe button and actually select it.
I looked through a list of LinkedIn invitations from people with 5 or more interconnected connections to get them to accept requests. The browser will again trace its own process that goes through my invitation, identifying what meets my threshold of interconnections and then accepting it. However, I had the comet perform these tasks, so I couldn't help but think that doing it myself would be faster.
It took me two minutes to unsubscribe from receiving emails from these two providers, but it took me a little over 30 seconds to unsubscribe from the same thing (yes, I timing myself). Comet also took the time to accept several LinkedIn invitations, a task that can be done in just a few clicks. I see it serves as a great accessibility tool and as a way to complete background tasks while you're doing something else.
You can unlock more agent features by launching the “Control browser” prompt. I didn't notice this until my browser contacted me confused to ask when I could reserve or buy the product. Without this phrase, Comet will stop these tasks other than completing and provide instructions on how to run them manually instead.
First, ask Comet to “control your browser” and summarise the comments. Barge article. Instead of rejecting my request because I couldn't read the collapsed comment section (like Chrome's Gemini), Comet circumvented this and opened the comments section itself. It summed up the feelings surrounding the cursed work of colleague Vee about Grok's Ai anime Waifu, which calls users' responses to Chatbot overwhelmingly “negative and critical.”
I took a step further by asking comet to control my browser and asking my Amazon cart to add aquarium sand and glue for iPad repairs before checking out. The process was surprisingly seamless. Accept the total price, choose Prime's daily shipping rate, choose the default payment option, and press “Order” without needing to intervene.
When I asked Comet to book a restaurant reservation for me, I came across some hiccups. When I finally found a restaurant that accepted online reservations, I once again asked my browser to make a reservation for me on a specific day. I completed the task, but did not request an email or phone number, and instead entered both general placeholders. I was able to have a comet rebook with an actual email address, but that indicates that the browser may not always get everything right.
“Some of the more complex agent actions, like shopping, have higher failure rates than simpler tasks, but this is actually a limitation of the current AI model,” said Jesse Dwyer, a confused spokesman. Barge. “So this is just easier and better with comets.”
Still, Comet can do much more than Chrome's Gemini integration, and is exactly the type of tool that aims to be created by Google. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has revealed that startups want to challenge Google's advantage.
