Ever feel like AI chatbots are cool, but they’re still just… a box on a screen? You ask them a question, they give you an answer.
But what if they could actually do stuff for you across the web?
I just watched an incredible interview where the CEO of Perplexity breaks down why his team built their own web browser, Comet, and I think it’s a total game-changer.
🚀 Why Build a Whole New Browser?
So, why not just build another extension? According to the creator, it was for both defense and offense.
- 🛡️ Defense: This industry pro revealed that Google was actually messing with their Chrome extensions, sometimes even uninstalling them automatically! To control their own destiny, they realized they needed their own platform.
- ⚙️ Offense: This is the big one. The future isn’t just searching, it’s doing. The expert sees a future of AI agents that can browse multiple tabs, compare prices, fill out forms, and manage your tasks. To do that securely and effectively, the AI needs to live inside the browser itself.
✨ The Plan to Beat Google
Here’s the killer insight on how a startup can compete with a giant like Google. The mind behind it says it all comes down to economics. Google’s entire business is built on ads.
Think about it: what happens when you can tell your AI agent,
“Go find the best camera for me, but ignore all the sponsored links and just read the real reviews”?
That would completely disrupt Google’s ad model! This innovator argues they are fundamentally disincentivized from building an agent that’s too good at serving the user over the advertiser.
💡 Smarter AI, Not Bigger
This was fascinating. The Perplexity team isn’t trying to build the next GPT-5. The creator called that a “rat race” they want no part of. Instead, this AI professional shared that they focus on fine-tuning other powerful models for very specific jobs:
- ✅ Summarization: Making models experts at accurate, cited summaries.
- 🤖 Browser Control: Training new models to be specialists at clicking, typing, and navigating tabs efficiently.
The ultimate goal is to eventually have smaller, faster AI agents that can run locally on your own machine. Super fast and totally private!
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The CEO goes way deeper into their model strategy, privacy, and the future of work.
For the full deep-dive, make sure to watch the original video from the creator! It’s an absolute must-see.