Comet Goes Free: The Turning Point in AI Browsing

1. Why did Perplexity make the Comet AI browser free?
2. What risks and challenges does AI-powered browsing face?
3. How could Comet reshape the future of browsers and online content?

When Perplexity announced that Comet, its much-anticipated AI browser, would now be available to everyone—for free, the tech world paid attention. Once reserved for high-tier subscribers who paid $200 a month, the browser’s transformation signals not just a pricing shift, but the start of a potential paradigm change in how we browse, search — and trust — the web.

A Bold Break with Convention

Comet launched in mid-2025 as a premium product aimed at power users, with built-in AI that could summarize, act, and navigate for you behind the scenes. Its promise was bold: to turn browsing into a dialogue rather than a passive activity. (TechCrunch)

Now, Perplexity is tearing down the barrier. As Business Insider reports, the company is making the browser free globally, though with usage limits to protect backend capacity. It’s also rolling out Comet Plus, a $5/month offering that unlocks curated news content—with major media partners—while giving those publishers 80 % of the revenue.

The company frames this as an offensive against what it calls “slop”—the flood of low-quality content that dilutes meaningful discourse online. But it is also a gambit: to shift the center of gravity in the browser world from search engines and tabs to AI agents.

Why This Could Matter

For decades, the browser has been neutral ground—a conduit for content, not a judge of it. Comet challenges that. Instead of simply delivering links, it actively filters, digests, and responds. It becomes a mediator between you and the chaotic web.

That’s not a small shift. If users embrace it, Comet could reshape how we discover information, how publishers are compensated, and how power is distributed among tech platforms. It could be the point where “the browser” ceases to be a dumb vessel and becomes an AI companion.

Cracks in the Facade

Yet the path is fraught with tension. Some of the most vocal critiques revolve around the core assumption: that users want distilled AI answers instead of engaging with original voices. TechRadar warned that Comet Plus may reduce articles to summaries, depriving authors of visibility while treating their work as raw input.

Security is another concern. Tom’s Hardware reports that audits by Brave and Guardio revealed vulnerabilities: because Comet sometimes processes webpage content directly into AI prompts, malicious content could exploit that pipeline, enabling phishing or worse.

Meanwhile, the scaling challenge looms large. With free access comes a flood of usage, edge cases, and infrastructure pressure. Mistakes or slowdowns could erode trust rapidly.

Competitive Ripples

Comet’s move comes at a moment of intense competition. Microsoft recently launched Copilot Mode in Edge, blending chat, search, and browsing (Reuters). Opera, too, is betting on Neon, a subscription-based agentic browser that can execute tasks and run code locally (Reuters).

The message is clear: the browser war is entering a new phase—one where AI capabilities, not speed or rendering quirks, become the battleground.

The Road Ahead — What to Watch

The next months will test Perplexity’s vision. Will free Comet adoption grow fast enough to challenge incumbents? Can publishers accept being filtered by AI in exchange for revenue share? Will regulators or copyright claimants intervene?

The stakes are high: if Comet succeeds, it could redefine the very fabric of online navigation. If it stumbles, it may confirm suspicions that AI-mediated browsing is a novelty, not a revolution.

My View: Excitement with a Side of Wariness

I approach this moment with enthusiastic curiosity. If Comet can pull off reliable performance, responsible AI behavior, and fair treatment of content creators, it has the potential to pivot how we interact with the web. It could elevate human inquiry and reduce friction.

At the same time, ambition can easily outpace execution. The margin for error is slim when you step into the core browsing experience. A single breach or poor judgment by an AI agent could undo credibility in a heartbeat.

Still, this feels like a hinge moment. If Comet proves resilient, we may look back at October 2025 as the beginning of the AI browser era.