Perplexity assumes it: its Comet browser will be a personal vacuum cleaner
In times that run, when a young AI shoot announces the creation of a web browser, we would rather expect communication highlighting confidentiality. However, Perplexity has chosen a radically different path. During an interview with the TBPN podcast this week, Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of the company, did not hide his intentions. Baptized Comet And mentioned for the first time at the end of February late February, this future browser will have the main mission to collect detailed information on the online activities of its users, including outside the Perplexity ecosystem. The objective? Better understand their interests to offer them ultra-personalized advertisements. We already knew that the startup was running after Google, and has never hidden from it as we can see with advertising below, but we did not imagine that it was going to be at its practices.
Assumed data collection
To justify his strategy, Aravind Srinivas explains: “ This is one of the reasons why we wanted to create a browser. We want to get data even outside the application to better understand you ». For him, user interactions with the IA tool of Perplexity are often confined to a professional framework and are not enough to draw a complete portrait of their personal aspirations.
The manager therefore admits that limiting himself to professional requests does not allow a sufficiently rich user profile to be built. “” Other information, like what you buy, the hotels you stay, the restaurants you frequent and how you spend your time, say so much about you He adds. Aravind Srinivas therefore seems convinced that future users of Comet will accept this follow -up in exchange for advertisements deemed more relevant. “We want to use this context to create a profile and perhaps show you advertisements in our discovery wire,” he concludes. What he describes there is the dream of any advertising … and a real nightmare for privacy. We are talking here about the creation of a real digital double of the user, more faithful than ever thanks to a tracking doped at AI from the start.
Comet, as an air of deja vu
The development of Comet would have encountered some obstacles, but its launch remains scheduled for May 2025, if we believe the CEO. This strategy furiously recalls that which made the success of Google: to observe the habits of Internet users to serve them as the most targeted advertising possible.
It is also precisely this same logic that prompted Google to develop its own browser, Chrome, as well as a mobile operating system, Android. Perplexity, which is positioned as a rival of the Mountain View firm in the field of online research, therefore seems to want to take a similar path.
Aggressive expansion
Indeed, the appetite of Perplexity is not limited to office computers. The company has just established A partnership with Motorola To preinstall its application on the RAZR range, accessible via the AI motorcycle assistant.
It should be remembered that data collection for advertising purposes is a common practice in tech. Google is not an isolated case: Meta (Facebook, Instagram) uses its monitoring pixels scattered on the web, and even Apple, yet a cantor of privacy, practices location monitoring for advertising in some of its applications. However, all legal and generalized that they may be, these methods arouse growing distrust, fueling the debates and actions of regulators in Europe as in the United States.
In this context, the franchise of Srinivas on its intentions may surprise, even seem ironic, at a time when giants in the sector are facing a regulatory hardening. Google is also struggling with American justice for abuse of a dominant position, the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking to force it to sell Chrome. A scenario that would not move to Openai or Perplexity, who have already been interested in a possible repurchase of the browser.
Transparency or risky bet?
We dreamed of a Comet which comes to shake up Chrome and revolutionize web navigation. The only revolution that we are announced for the moment is that of the exploitation of the personal data of users. It is not specified in the interview, but Perplexity will bet on the AI agents, like what also prepares Opera with its Browser Operator. The term “Agentic Search” is indeed well mentioned on the first visual of teasing of the browser. It will take at least that to dazzle and convince the public.
The honesty displayed by the founder of Perplexity on his desire to monetize the data via his browser contrasts in any case with the usually more felted speeches of the industry. At least, it now gives reflection to the future potential users of Comet. They will be able to immediately wonder if the total abandonment of their privacy is worth the innovations that Comet will offer. The answer to this question will undoubtedly depend on the success of this new browser.
