Perplexity now offers its AI-enabled browser Comet free to users worldwide, removing its earlier US$200/month subscription restriction. The company also launched Comet Plus, a paid tier offering curated news content and revenue sharing with publishers.

Comet integrates Perplexity's AI directly into the browsing experience, combining the firm's answer-engine with an assistant that can summarise pages, complete tasks, and guide users across tabs. It was first released in July to subscribers of the Max plan and invitees, but is now available for free permanently-with some usage limits.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas framed this shift as a push against low-quality, algorithmic content on the web, saying the broader rollout will make AI-powered browsing accessible to all. The launch comes with caveats: heavy users may hit rate caps, and the free tier excludes certain features now reserved for paid tiers.

Comet Plus, priced at US$5/month for non-subscribers, bundles access to journalism from outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post, and Condé Nast. Perplexity claims it will share 80 per cent of Comet Plus revenue with publishers. Pro and Max subscribers continue to receive Comet Plus as part of their subscription.

The free launch positions Comet as a pacesetter in the agentic browser race, bringing it into direct competition with offerings from Google, Opera, and The Browser Company. Opera's Neon browser, for instance, emphasises local AI execution and task automation, while Dia's skill gallery enables users to codify prompt workflows.

Perplexity's pivot towards free access reflects its ambition to entrench Comet as a primary interface for interacting with the web. Srinivas has argued a browser is more difficult to replicate than a chat tool, giving Comet a longer window to differentiate.

Security and credential management were highlighted at launch. Perplexity has partnered with 1Password to integrate secure autofill and encrypted credential storage into Comet. The extension is now available to all Comet users, designed so that sensitive user data remains private and local.

Some early testers have praised Comet's fluidity in handling tasks like summarising email threads, drafting bookings, and responding inline on webpages. Yet errors persist-such as misidentifying recipients in an email automation-and the AI assistant does not always grasp nuance or constraints in requests.

Perplexity itself faces legal scrutiny over content practices. It has been accused by major media organisations of scraping news articles without permission and bypassing robots. txt restrictions using“stealth” crawlers. The company disputes those characterisations.

MENAFN12102025000152002308ID1110183660