Comet Browser — Perplexity Puts AI Search Inside Every Tab

Reviewed and verified by FeiYueh · Last verified 2026-09-08

Comet turns Perplexity's answer engine into a permanent browser sidebar, so "search" is no longer a website you have to navigate to, but a layer you can summon

Comet turns Perplexity's answer engine into a permanent browser sidebar, so "search" is no longer a website you have to navigate to, but a layer you can summon right next to every tab. It first opened on July 9, 2025 to Perplexity Max subscribers paying $200 per month, then became a free global download on October 2, 2025 — those three months from high-priced closed beta to free mass availability were, in effect, Perplexity betting on the browser to capture users' default entry point. What Comet Actually Is: A Chromium Fork Plus an Assistant That Operates Your Tabs Comet is built on Chromium, so Chrome extensions, bookmark imports, password management, and web compatibility all carry over directly. On first launch, users can import Chrome bookmarks, history, and logged-in sessions with one click — a switching cost Perplexity deliberately drove down, since you don't need to rebuild your browsing habits. All the difference is concentrated in the Comet Assistant panel on the right. The key distinction between Comet Assistant and a typical AI sidebar is that it can read the actual content of the current tab, and can act on your behalf. It doesn't hand the URL to a model to re-fetch; it draws directly on the browser's already-rendered DOM and login state. That means it can summarize an email in your inbox, compare prices across three open shopping tabs, or turn dashboard data that requires a login into a table — things a pure web-based AI search cannot do. The Background Assistant, launched alongside it in October 2025, goes a step further: users can hand off a task to run in the background, and the assistant opens tabs, clicks, and fills forms on its own, reporting back when done. This layer is what's known as agentic browsing, and it's also the root of the problems in the security section below. The Pricing Path: From $200 a Month to Zero Comet's business model flipped completely in four months. "Comet became free to all users worldwide on October 2, 2025, having previ

Reviewed and verified by FeiYueh · Last verified 2026-09-08. Independently maintained — not AI-generated boilerplate.