Perplexity Comet Browser: A Better Alternative to Chrome?

TL;DR

Perplexity's new Comet browser forks Chrome and adds a built-in AI assistant that browses for you, price-shops products, reads your email, summarizes pages, and posts to Twitter on your behalf. Access currently requires the $200-a-month Perplexity Max plan, with invite-only rollout expanding over the summer.

Transcript

This week we saw the launch of Gro 4. V3 launched its new image to video with audio feature. Meta and OpenAI ramped up their poaching shenanigans. But maybe the most exciting this week for me was Perplexity's launch of its allnew web browser, Comet. And today, I'd like to start with a fresh, unfiltered reaction to what this browser is all about. Bu... Read More

Key Insights

• Comet is Perplexity's new web browser built by forking Chrome and tweaking it heavily, replacing the default search with Perplexity and adding a voice microphone in the top search bar. It imports existing Chrome bookmarks on setup.
• Comet's core feature is an assistant button in the top right that opens a sidebar. The assistant can see the active browser window, indicated by a blue glow around the screen, and can scroll and read pages on its own.
• Access to Comet requires the Perplexity Max plan at $200 a month. That plan gives unlimited Perplexity Labs access, early feature access, advanced model options, and priority support. Invite-only rollout expands to a waitlist over the summer.
• The assistant can price-compare products. When on an Amazon listing for an Anker power bank at $119.99, it searched other sources and reported the price dropped to $94.49 elsewhere due to Prime Day sales.
• Comet can take actions on your behalf, such as writing and posting a tweet after asking for confirmation. It appended 'Created with Comet Assistant' to the post, which the host noted he did not request and was not sure he liked.
• OpenAI is rumored to be releasing its own AI browser in the coming weeks to go head-to-head with Chrome and Perplexity, said to use AI to rethink how users browse the web.
• Google's Veo 3 rolled out image-to-video with audio, letting users upload an image and generate a video with sound. This enables more consistent characters across scenes for short films. Veo 3 is now global for Gemini Pro members on the $20-a-month plan.
• Moon Valley released Marey, an ethical AI video model trained entirely on openly licensed data, targeting filmmakers who want to avoid copyright lawsuits. It offers extensive controls like motion transfer, pose transfer, and camera control, but took about five minutes per generation.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is the Perplexity Comet browser?

Comet is Perplexity's new web browser, built by forking Chrome and heavily tweaking it. Its search bar uses Perplexity and includes a voice microphone, and it can import your existing Chrome bookmarks. The key feature is a built-in AI assistant in the top right corner designed so you do less manual browsing yourself and let the browser do more of the browsing for you through an always-open sidebar you chat with.

Q: How much does the Perplexity Comet browser cost to access?

To use Comet right now, you need to be on the Perplexity Max plan, which costs $200 a month. That plan gives unlimited access to Perplexity Labs, early access to new features, advanced model options, and priority support. Comet became available to Perplexity Max subscribers first, with invite-only access rolling out slowly to a waitlist over the summer, and new users also receiving a limited number of invites to share.

Q: What can the Comet AI assistant actually do?

The Comet assistant can see your active browser window, scroll and read pages on its own, and describe on-screen content like image thumbnails. It can price-compare a product against other websites, summarize the current web page with a single button, read your email for urgent messages, and take actions such as writing and posting a tweet on your behalf after asking for confirmation.

Q: How does Comet's price comparison feature work?

When you land on a product page, you can ask the assistant whether it is the best available price or if other sites sell it for less. In the demo, the host viewed an Anker laptop power bank on Amazon priced at $119.99. The assistant read many other sources and reported that this was not the lowest price, since Amazon and several other reputable sites had dropped it to $94.49 due to Prime Day sales.

Q: Is OpenAI releasing its own AI browser?

Rumor has it that OpenAI is releasing an AI browser in the coming weeks to go head-to-head with Chrome and now Perplexity. OpenAI's browser is said to use AI to rethink how users browse the web. The host guessed it will probably be very similar to what Comet is currently doing, though details were not confirmed at the time of the video.

Q: What new feature did Veo 3 add this week?

Veo 3 rolled out image-to-video with audio, letting you upload an image and generate a video from it that includes sound. Previously Veo 3 could turn an image into a video but only without audio. The benefit is much more consistent characters: you can create a character with any AI image generator you prefer, then animate each scene with the same character, which is powerful for making short films.

Q: Where is Veo 3 now available?

According to Josh Woodward, the Gemini app is now shipping Veo 3 globally for all Pro members, which is the $20-a-month plan. This means users in India, Indonesia, all of Europe, and more are starting to get access to create videos. The global expansion significantly widened access to Veo 3's video generation capabilities beyond the regions where it was previously available.

Q: Why is Moon Valley's Marey model considered ethical?

Moon Valley's Marey is considered ethical because it is one of the few models trained entirely on openly licensed data that the company itself licensed. This targets filmmakers who want to avoid future lawsuits over AI-generated content resembling copyrighted material. It offers extensive controls like motion transfer, pose transfer, and camera control, but it is slow, taking about five minutes to generate, and can glitch, such as a monkey's neck spinning the wrong way.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Perplexity launched Comet, a Chrome fork with a Perplexity-powered search bar and an AI assistant sidebar. The assistant sees your active window, scrolls pages itself, and describes on-screen content. Access requires the $200-a-month Perplexity Max plan, though the host received early invite access.

• Comet's assistant handles tasks that reduce manual browsing: comparing product prices across sites, summarizing the current web page with one click, reading email for urgent messages, and posting tweets on your behalf after confirmation. This represents a fundamentally different way of using the internet through a persistent chat sidebar.

• Beyond browsers, Veo 3 added image-to-video with audio for consistent characters and went global for Gemini Pro members at $20 a month. Moon Valley released Marey, an ethically trained video model for filmmakers with extensive motion and camera controls, though generation is slow and results can glitch.