On Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, CEO Perplexity AI Aravind Srinivas at a press conference at SK Telecom Co. headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.
Seongjoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Perplexity AI announced on Thursday that its artificial intelligence-powered web browser comet will be available worldwide, with users being offered free of charge.
The Comet browser is designed to act as a personal assistant that allows you to search the web, organize tabs, draft emails, organize shops, and more. The startup first launched the comet in July for $200 a month to Perplexity Max subscribers, and its waitlists swelled to millions of people, the company said.
Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas will join CNBC TV and will be tuned to 8:10am ET on Friday to discuss the release of the AI browser Comet for free. View in real time with CNBC+ or CNBC Pro streams.
Perplexity’s decision to offer comets for free will help attract more users. GoogleOpenai and humanity have their own AI browser products.
In September, Google deployed Chemini in the Chrome browser, Anthropic announced its browser-based AI agent in August, and Openai announced its operator in January, an agent that uses the browser to complete tasks. Perplexity placed an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid on Google’s Chrome browser in August.
Perplexity is best known for its AI-powered search engine that provides a simple answer for users to ask questions or link to original source materials on the web. Last year, the company launched a revenue sharing model with publishers after being criticised for plagiarism content from the media.
The company also introduced Comet Plus in August. This is a subscription that allows users to access content from “trusted publishers and journalists,” according to a blog post. Perplexity said on Tuesday that CNN, Condé Nast, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Le Monde and Le Figaro are their first publishing partners.
Perplexity said additional features are also in the middle. The company has messed around with the mobile version of comet and the feature called the Background Assistant.
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