Perplexity debuts Comet, a free AI browser (that currently costs $200)

On Wednesday, Perplexity.ai debuted Comet, its first entry into the browser market that does away with Google and Microsoft’s Bing in favor of its own search engine.

Comet will be available for both Windows and macOS platforms, the company said.

Perplexity has locked Comet behind a, um, perplexing pricing model. Although Comet is technically free, Perplexity has made it accessible for now via a waitlist. If you’d like to download it, you can wait for your turn to arrive or subscribe to Perplexity Max, the company’s $200/mo plan that includes access to its latest AI models.

What sets Perplexity apart is that the browser doesn’t use a traditional third-party search engine. Instead, it relies upon Perplexity’s AI engine to provide AI summaries of the answers. It also can perform tasks that other AI engines can do, such as summarizing web pages. The Browser Company of New York has also launched an AI browser called Dia.

Our colleagues at TechCrunch took Comet for a spin, and found the browser useful, though it couldn’t handle complex tasks. One disconcerting aspect: if you want Comet to be able to help organize your own life, you’ll need to give it access to your private information, such as your calendar and email.

Comet also employs agentic AI, which sends off various AI couriers to perform tasks independently, then waits for your approval. The problem? In this case, it didn’t work. When TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff asked Comet to seek out and book a parking space for an upcoming trip, things went south.

“Turns out, Comet Assistant hallucinated and entered completely wrong dates, later telling me that the dates I wanted were booked, but still wanted to have me complete the check-out anyways,” Zeff said. “I had to tell the AI agent that the dates were non-negotiable, and asked it to find another location. It ran into the same problem again.”

Perplexity, indeed.