I tested a new browser that makes Chrome feel outdated

AI is embedding itself into every nook of our digital lives faster than Elon Musk can type his next obnoxious tweet. First, it was an app that could talk to you in a natural voice. Then it spread to everyday voice assistants. And now, it’s coming — strong-armed — for our main work app: web browsers.

Google is pushing hard to make Gemini a core part of Chrome. The makers of Arc have already moved on to an AI-first browser. OpenAI is rumored to be working on its own Chrome alternative. But in one corner, Perplexity — the AI search engine that wants to replace Google — has quietly launched its own browser, Comet, with limited availability.

I got to use an early version of its Mac app. And I have thoughts. A lot of thoughts. Mostly, though, using Perplexity’s Comet feels like I just touched the future — the one we’ve been dreaming of.

I realize the weight of repurposing an iconic movie title, and I do that with utmost sincerity. Comet feels otherworldly. Something… perplexing for real (geddit?). And I’ll tell you how.

When I first got access to Comet, I assumed it was yet another browser with an AI sidebar (which it does have) that helps you with translations, summaries, and other basic stuff using the current webpage. But Comet baffled me — in the best way — right from the first step.

We’ve all been waiting for the reality where AI does stuff for us. We’re partially there — Gemini, for example, integrates across Google services so you can ask it to add calendar entries using email context or generate music playlists based on your mood. But Comet takes things a couple of notches higher. It navigates websites, learns on the go if it fails, reattempts, verifies its actions, and does tasks on your behalf — all unsupervised.

While watching the setup demo videos, something caught my eye, and I instantly started exploring it further. The video showed Comet managing tabs, adding items to carts, and more. Like the Rabbit R1 (remember that orange, wonderful rectangle?), I assumed it was trained only on specific websites, like the one in the video. My excitement ensured I proved myself wrong pretty quickly.

I asked Perplexity — the default search engine (duh!) — to tell me a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. It gave me a solid recipe. Then I asked it to add the required ingredients to my Amazon cart — and that’s when the magic started.

A glow appeared on the webpage and the browser started navigating the site — without me touching anything. It looked up the ingredients and began adding them to the cart. It got stuck in a loop when it couldn’t find fresh chicken (Amazon India doesn’t sell it at my location), and it kept trying for several minutes. Out of pity (okay, impatience), I stopped its misery and gave it a simpler task: add ingredients for aglio e olio pasta. Voila, everything was in my cart within seconds.

For a more obscure test, I gave it a list of well-rated Indian shows pulled from a random tweet I came across and asked it to add them to my list on JustWatch, my cross-platform watchlist manager. Now, that’s a service I wouldn’t expect Comet to be trained on — and rightly so. It navigated the site, tried different sections to figure out where my list was, double-checked if it had missed anything, even inspected the site’s code to verify its actions.

I asked it to create a custom list — even I had to look up where to find that option, but Comet figured it out on its own using trial and error. After that I asked it to scan my 1000+ item watchlist and surface family-friendly movies and shows specifically in Hindi and Punjabi — and it did. If it got stuck, it tried another way, like when a movie poster wasn’t hyperlinked and the click failed, it tried clicking the associated text. You can see all this reasoning live in the side panel.

It can even access your Gmail account (requires account linking), tell you stuff about your inbox, and take actions like replying to emails or scheduling meetings.

If you can’t already tell, I came out impressed — mostly.

I can truly see the potential. Comet can become the assistant you always wanted. It can do mundane things in one tab, like filling your Amazon cart using your browsing history, while you focus on your main task in another. Or you can just curiously observe it — like a kid watching a robot — as it takes several minutes to do something you could’ve done in five seconds.

It works in parallel, without grabbing your attention. But it makes a lot of mistakes. It messes things up. And that’s fair too as it’s still in beta with limited access. Think of it as a newbie office trainee: slow to learn, needs to be walked through the process, often makes a mess, and needs supervision. You may find yourself repeating instructions or cleaning up after it, wondering why you didn’t just do it yourself.

But that’s not the point. It’s supposed to handle tasks that are too trivial to steal your focus — run them in the background while you work on what matters and let you step in only if it stumbles. And from what I’ve seen, things look promising on that front.

I imagine it as an always-on assistant sitting quietly in the side panel, always listening. I tell it to do something in a new tab or on an existing page while I’m writing — where even glancing away could break the flow — and it gets it done by the time I’m finished.

That’s the future I want to live in. And that’s the future I tasted, even if briefly, with Comet.

I know Gemini is getting deeply baked into Chrome, and it’s unlikely Google isn’t working on its own agentic overhaul. But right now, Comet looks like the spaceship that might one day fly between planets while the others are still circling the moon.

To access it, though, you’ll need Perplexity’s $200/month plan. If you’re wondering — no, it’s not worth spending that much every month. That decision is likely to limit early adoption. Perplexity will have to offer it for free or at least bundle it with a cheaper plan if it wants to avoid monetizing user data and still remain accessible. There are still an awful lot of rough edges around AI’s use to smooth out, and the voice input system via Assistant (which actually makes the browser stand out) can be sluggish — often taking minutes to analyze a command or a page.

If you somehow manage to get access to Comet, I think you should give it a try, even if you’re not in the market for a new browser. It’ll give you a glimpse of what your current browser lacks — and what it could become.

As for me, I’ll try to hold off the urge to switch. But with how playful Comet is, I might give in. I just might.