Perplexity’s long-teased Comet browser has finally landed on Windows—albeit in a closed beta sent to a handful of early testers—and its arrival marks more than just a platform expansion. Comet is built around “agentic search,” a model that treats the browser itself as a proactive assistant able to summarise pages, answer follow-up questions, compare prices and even triage your email without forcing you to hop between tabs. After three months of Mac-only testing, the Windows debut widens the playing field and hints at a coming showdown between AI-native browsers and the traditional address-bar model we have used for decades.
When the first invites for Comet’s macOS build shipped in March, eligibility was limited to Apple-silicon machines. Perplexity’s chief executive Aravind Srinivas promised parity for other platforms “soon,” and on 22 June he delivered, posting on X that a Windows build was ready and that “a few invites have been sent for early testers,” with Android development “moving ahead of schedule.” The message came just hours before Engadget and a cluster of tech sites confirmed that a small Windows cohort had gained access.
What “agentic search” looks like in practice
Comet still runs on Chromium, so the UI feels instantly familiar, yet almost every surface is wired to Perplexity’s in-house large-language-model stack. A side panel can be summoned on any page to explain jargon, pull citations, or propose related reading. Because the model understands page context, you can ask it to “rewrite this paragraph in simpler English,” “pull the three biggest take-aways,” or “show me cheaper alternatives” without copy-pasting content into a separate chat window. The browser’s Comet Assistant also understands high-level commands such as “close duplicate tabs,” “group my research tabs,” or “find any cart I left open,” automating chores that usually chew up attention.
Perplexity is pitching Comet as a full productivity surface rather than a thin search bar. Early testers on macOS can already ask the assistant to resurface forgotten emails, highlight unread newsletters, or preview attached documents inline. A Try-On feature lets you upload a selfie and see how different outfits might look, leaning on the same multimodal pipeline that powers Perplexity’s image-based answers. Shopping extensions track price drops in the background and suggest coupon codes when you hit checkout. All those capabilities are expected to ship on Windows as the beta matures, giving Microsoft’s own Copilot-heavy Edge a serious competitor on its home turf.
It has not published final pricing, but insiders note that the company’s main service follows a freemium curve: generous free quotas, then a $20-per-month Pro tier that unlocks bigger context windows and faster models. Observers expect Comet to adopt the same structure, with certain agentic actions or larger batch jobs drawing from a monthly credit pool. Because the browser runs on Chromium, day-to-day performance should match Chrome or Edge, but early Mac testers say AI lookups add only a second or two to page load when the side panel is active—a delay that feels negligible once users abandon the copy-paste dance between browser and chatbot.
Privacy questions surface quickly
Comet’s promise of deep personal context is also its biggest risk. In April Perplexity outlined an advertising vision that would use browsing behaviour to build hyper-personalised sponsorships. Critics worried that the browser might collect activity beyond its own window; Srinivas later clarified that data sharing will be opt-in, but the episode sparked a broader debate about how much telemetry an “agentic” browser needs to be useful. The BBC, Forbes and other publishers have already accused Perplexity’s crawler of pulling copyrighted text without permission, and those controversies are sure to shadow Comet as it scales.
Google’s AI Mode, Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, Opera Neon and Arc Search’s Max mode all point toward a future in which the browser itself is a conversational agent. What differentiates Comet, at least for now, is how tightly the assistant is woven into every workflow: tab management, commerce, research and media consumption feel like facets of one dialogue instead of siloed plug-ins. Perplexity also benefits from running its own answer engine rather than licensing a single LLM, allowing it to fan out queries, cite sources aggressively and update answers on the fly when new pages load. If it can keep latency low and stave off larger rivals, Comet could set the usability bar for AI-first browsers.
Although the Windows cohort remains small, screenshots leaking on Discord show a near-identical layout to the Mac build, complete with dark-mode gradients and the signature blue “Ask Comet” pill in the toolbar. Testers report that side-panel answers rarely hallucinate thanks to Perplexity’s habitual inline citations, though the assistant occasionally struggles with heavily scripted single-page apps. One user noted that the Try-On clothing feature failed on low-resolution selfies; another found that bulk tab grouping mis-classified Google Docs as social media, illustrating the fine-tuning still needed before a public rollout.
What Windows means for Perplexity’s growth curve
Perplexity claims roughly 30 million monthly active users and more than 600 million queries a month—minuscule next to Google but impressive for a three-year-old startup. Windows remains the world’s dominant desktop OS, so moving Comet beyond Mac could dramatically expand daily engagement and, eventually, ad revenue. It also positions the company to strike OEM deals; antitrust pressure on Google has opened a rare window for alternative search defaults, and Perplexity has already secured a pre-install agreement with Motorola’s Razr line. Landing a similar partnership with a Windows laptop vendor could put Comet in front of tens of millions of users overnight.
The roadmap: Android next, then iOS parity
Srinivas says the Android build is “ahead of schedule” and that the iOS version, currently limited to an in-app assistant, will receive full browser capabilities after the Windows beta stabilises. Cross-platform sync is a core design goal: a query started on a work PC should resume on a phone during the commute, complete with citation history and suggested follow-ups. Because Perplexity’s user profiles already live in the cloud, extending Comet to mobile is less a technical stretch than an interface challenge—ensuring that the assistant never feels cramped on a six-inch screen.
For web developers, Comet’s context scraping means that clean semantic HTML, structured data and clear section headings may influence how effectively the assistant summarises a page. Publishers will be watching whether Comet drives traffic back to source sites or keeps users siloed in the side panel. Perplexity argues that visible citations and one-click source cards encourage clicks, but the balance between convenience and cannibalisation remains an open question—one likely to shape future licensing talks with media outlets.
The bigger picture: browsers as operating systems
Browsers have long been mini-OSes, but Comet formalises that reality by delegating more intent interpretation to the browser than to individual sites. Instead of typing “cheap flights to Berlin” into a search box, a user might soon say, “Book me the least expensive flight that lands before noon,” and watch Comet negotiate across multiple travel sites, extract prices, and present a single-screen itinerary. That workflow shifts power away from individual websites and toward whichever agent sits closest to the user—exactly why every major AI lab is racing to ship its own browser.
No matter how fluid the demo, Comet still depends on vast cloud inference budgets, which means Perplexity must balance speed, accuracy and cost. The company has not disclosed which models run under the hood beyond a catch-all reference to its “Sonar” family, nor how much on-device caching or distillation is planned for battery-constrained laptops. Regulatory scrutiny could also force changes; Europe’s forthcoming AI Act demands detailed model transparency and explicit user consent for data aggregation, both areas where Perplexity’s policies remain vague.
Why this launch matters right now
Generative AI is shifting from novelty add-ons to core product identities, and nowhere is that clearer than in the humble browser—a piece of software we use for hours each day. Comet’s Windows beta signals that AI-native browsing is not a Mac-only experiment but a cross-platform trend accelerating toward mainstream adoption. Whether Perplexity ends up a category leader or an acquisition target, its willingness to rebuild the browser around a conversational agent is pushing rivals, regulators and users to rethink what “search” means in 2025.
Conclusion: a quiet icon with outsized ambition
Right now Comet is just a small purple icon on a few Windows taskbars, but behind it lies an audacious bet: that the next great computing platform is not a headset or a hologram but the browser, supercharged by language models that understand goals instead of keywords. If the beta proves stable, intuitive and respectful of privacy, Perplexity could reshape how millions of people gather information, shop, and collaborate online—turning the browser from a passive window into an active partner in daily life. Keep an eye on your inbox; the next wave of invites may arrive sooner than you think