AI search company Perplexity launched its Comet browser today on Android. The startup debuted the AI-centric browser in July on desktop with AI-powered search.
The company is bringing most of the desktop version’s capabilities to Android. People can use Perplexity as the default search engine, and they can also mention tabs to ask questions to the assistant. They can also use the voice mode to ask questions about all open tabs. Plus, the assistant can summarize searches across all tabs.
Perplexity said the browser can research and shop on your behalf as well, and you can look at what action the Comet assistant is taking. What’s more, the Android version has an in-built ad blocker.
The company said in the coming weeks it aims to add new features to the app, including a conversational agent that can search across sites and take actions, creating shortcuts for the assistant to take quick actions, and a fully functional password manager in coming weeks.
Earlier this month, the startup updated its Comet Assistant on desktop to efficiently perform more complex tasks that run for longer, like shifting data from a website to a spreadsheet.
While Perplexity has chosen to launch on Android, the company said it will also come to iOS soon. The company noted that Android has been a priority because of the volume of carriers and OEMs that have asked the startup to include Comet on their devices and solutions. However, there was no partnership announcement from Perplexity.
Earlier this year, the startup partnered with Motorola to preload the app on the company’s devices. But Perplexity didn’t specify if the agreement would extend to pre-installing the new Comet browser as well.
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AI browsers have been a space of interest for many companies. Apart from Perplexity, OpenAI, Opera, and The Browser Company — which is now owned by Atlassian — have launched their AI browsers. However, they have largely been desktop releases. The Browser Company released Arc Search for mobile last year, but there haven’t been significant updates to the app. Late last year, the company shifted its focus to a new browser called Dia, which doesn’t have a mobile version yet.
These companies have been trying hard to replace incumbents like Chrome and Safari with AI-powered browsers. But security experts have raised questions around vulnerabilities in agents that could pose a security risk. In October, Perplexity wrote a blog acknowledging these risks and saying that some of the new paradigms around attacks aided by AI would require rethinking security from the ground up.
