Perplexity sets out to attack Google by announcing Comet, its own web browser
If you are interested in artificial intelligence, you probably already know who is perplexity. For the others, know that it is an American startup founded in 2022, which became known thanks to its service combining web navigation and several models of language, including Chatgpt and Deepseek. She has been very active in recent weeks, revealing the blow Sonar Perplexity,, Deep Researchand by forging A partnership with Bouygues Telecom.
Accessible from a web browser or via applications (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac), Perplexity offers a hybrid approach between search engine and generative intelligence. Even if the announcement of the Comet web browser by the startup has surprised, it is ultimately a logical step for the company.
Artistic fuzzy
In a post on LinkedIn, Aravind Srinivas, co -founder and CEO of Perplexity, qualifies this project as a “major engineering issue”. A preview test phase is already open to interested users (You can register here), although few concrete elements have been revealed on the exact operation of the browser. Several questions remain unanswered.
Comet compatibility with Linux and MacOS environments is not confirmed, and it is still unknown if it will be based on Chromium, the open-source base adopted by many browsers. However, job offers recently published by Perplexity leave little doubt about the use of chromium. And it seems quite obvious that at least Windows will be supported at launch.
The same goes for the massive integration of artificial intelligence. The subtitle under the name of the new browser very clearly evokes research using AI agents. We imagine that they will be used to automate certain research or perform complex tasks. But with full access to all layers of the software, Perplexity could surprise us by going much further.
A substantive trend
Perplexity's announcement is part of a broader dynamic, where the integration of AI becomes a differentiation argument for navigators. Actors like The Browser Company, with its DIA project or the Opera navigator and its ARIA AI, also bet on this approach centered on artificial intelligence.
In view of its current trajectory, the Pèrexity Comet seems to be more likely to become a real competition for the hegemony of Google Chrome. Of course, the web giant still dominates the web browser market with 68.38 % of market shares all supports on a global scale with 68.38 %. This domination is even more marked on mobile, where Chrome reaches 69.79 % of market share. Nevertheless, it should also be remembered that the Internet Explorer dominated the market in 2008, displaying more than 90 % of market share, when Chrome appeared. It only took a few years at the Google browser to dethrone Internet Explorer. We will therefore follow Comet's evolution of an attentive eye.
