Perplexity Comet Review: Is the AI Browser Worth Switching To?

Perplexity’s Comet browser is worth switching to if you research, compare products or summarize pages every day: it is free on Mac, Windows, Android and iPhone, and its built-in assistant is the most capable we have seen in a free browser. It is not worth it if you want a set-and-forget agent for banking, work logins or anything sensitive, because prompt injection attacks on AI browsers are still an unsolved problem.

This Comet browser review covers what Comet does, what it costs in October 2026 (free, with optional Comet Plus, Pro and Max upgrades), how it handles privacy and security, the Amazon court fight over its shopping agent, and who should switch.

Comet browser at a glance

If you want the short answer before the details, this table sums up the comet browser in one place.

What is Perplexity Comet?

Comet is a full web browser, not an extension. It is built on Chromium, the open-source engine behind Chrome and Edge, so websites behave as you expect and you can import Chrome bookmarks and extensions when you set it up. The difference is the Comet Assistant: a side panel that can read the page you are on, your open tabs and, if you allow it, connected accounts such as Gmail and Google Calendar.

Perplexity launched Comet on Windows and macOS in July 2025 for its most expensive tier, made it free for everyone on 2 October 2025, and added Android in November 2025 and iPhone in March 2026. The official Comet page now lists Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The default search experience is Perplexity’s answer engine, which we cover in our full Perplexity AI review.

If you are new to the category, our roundup of the best AI browsers explains how Comet compares with Gemini in Chrome, Edge Copilot, Dia and others.

Key features of the Comet browser

Comet Assistant on every page

Open the assistant and ask about whatever you are reading. It can summarize long articles and PDFs, pull the key points from a YouTube video, explain jargon or draft a reply to the email in front of you. Perplexity’s own examples include comparing how different outlets cover the same story, building a study plan from a course syllabus and drafting an email that shares your schedule.

Questions across tabs

This is where Comet beats a normal chatbot. With five product pages open, you can ask which laptop has the best battery life for the price and get one answer that draws on all of them. For research-heavy work, that saves a lot of copying and pasting into a separate AI tool.

Agent tasks

Comet can also act: visit sites, click through pages, fill forms and build shopping carts. Free users run these tasks interactively in the browser, and a “Pause Comet Assistant” control lets you stop it mid-task. Paid users get more: a third-party review says Pro and Max can run tasks in the background through Perplexity Computer, the company’s cloud agent, using credits, and Max adds background assistants that run several jobs at once and can be scheduled.

Email and calendar help

Once you connect a Google account, the assistant can read and write Gmail and Calendar, for example summarizing an inbox or proposing meeting times. This is powerful and also the riskiest part of Comet, as the security section explains.

Comet pricing: free, Comet Plus, Pro and Max

The browser and its assistant cost nothing. You only pay if you want premium publisher content or heavier agent use.

The Perplexity Pro help article lists what Pro unlocks, and Perplexity’s pricing page lists Pro at $20 a month with 4,000 bonus credits and Max at $200 with 10,000 monthly credits plus 35,000 bonus credits. Third-party reviewers report that the Pro bonus credits expire after 30 days, so do not assume a monthly allowance. Our Perplexity pricing guide breaks down each plan and whether Pro or Max is worth it, and our tips to save money on AI subscriptions help if you already pay for several tools.

How well does Comet work in daily use?

In everyday browsing, Comet’s reading features are its strongest point. Summaries, tab comparisons and “explain this page” requests are fast and genuinely useful, and they need no setup beyond installing the browser. If summarizing is your main need, compare it with the dedicated tools in our list of the best AI summarizers. If you already use Perplexity, the search results will feel familiar.

The agent is more uneven. Reviews collected by third-party trackers describe good results on clearly described tasks, with failures more common on sites that require logins, pages heavy with JavaScript and precise form filling. Some reviewers report that a meaningful share of multi-step jobs fail or need correction, and that it can be hard to see what went wrong afterward. Users also mention high memory use while the AI is active. Perplexity says it rebuilt the assistant in mid-2026 and claims better multi-step performance, but that is the company’s own testing.

Our editorial view: treat Comet like a capable intern. It is excellent at reading, summarizing and gathering options. Check its work before anything is submitted, purchased or sent. For a wider look at what agents can and cannot do today, see our list of the best AI agents.

Is Comet safe? Privacy and prompt injection

When an AI agent reads a web page, hidden text on that page can trick it into following instructions you never gave. This is called prompt injection. Because Comet’s assistant can act inside your logged-in accounts, a malicious page, email or calendar invite could in theory make it leak data or take an action on your behalf.

This is not hypothetical. Researchers have published several attacks on Comet:

• Brave reported a prompt injection issue in 2025, which Perplexity patched.
• LayerX described “CometJacking”, where a crafted link could pull Gmail data to an attacker’s server. Perplexity initially said it saw no security impact.
• Zenity Labs and Guardio reported tests in which Comet was tricked by a calendar invite, a fake store or a phishing page, according to third-party summaries.
• Trail of Bits published a threat-modeling audit in February 2026.

Perplexity has responded with a classifier that screens page content, file-access boundaries and permission prompts before the assistant acts. Those help, but no vendor has solved indirect prompt injection. Also note that when AI features are on, page content is processed on Perplexity’s servers rather than on your device. Our guide to AI data privacy for business explains what that means for client data.

1. Use a separate profile for agent work. Keep banking, health and work accounts in another browser.
2. Connect the minimum. Only link Gmail or Calendar if you actually use those features.
3. Read every confirmation. When Comet asks permission to act, check what it is about to do.
4. Avoid unknown links during tasks. Do not let the agent open links from emails or messages you do not trust.

Comet vs Amazon: the shopping agent lawsuit

Amazon sued Perplexity in November 2025 over Comet’s agent shopping on Amazon for users. A district court granted a preliminary injunction in March 2026 that blocked it, and the Ninth Circuit stayed that order within weeks. In early August 2026 the appeals court vacated the injunction, reasoning that on the current record the assistant acts on the user’s instructions and Amazon was unlikely to win its computer-access claims at this stage. The court stressed the ruling is narrow and sent the case back to the district court, so the dispute is not over. For shoppers, it means Comet’s agent can currently be used on Amazon, but retailers may keep pushing back on AI agents.

Comet vs other AI browsers

OpenAI deprecated ChatGPT Atlas in July 2026 and moved browser tasks into ChatGPT Work and the ChatGPT extension. If you mainly want ChatGPT, read our Perplexity vs ChatGPT comparison to decide which ecosystem suits you.

Pros and cons of Comet

Who should switch to Comet?

• Switch if you are a student, researcher, marketer or analyst who reads dozens of pages a day and wants summaries and comparisons without copying text into a chatbot. Students should also see our list of AI research tools.
• Switch if you already pay for Perplexity Pro, since Comet Plus is included.
• Stay with Chrome if you rely on Google’s ecosystem and only need occasional AI help; Gemini in Chrome covers that.
• Look elsewhere if you want a different assistant altogether; our guide to the best ChatGPT alternatives covers other options by use case.
• Skip agent features if you manage money, client data or company systems in the browser.

Frequently asked questions

Final verdict: a great research browser, a cautious agent

Perplexity Comet earns 7.5 out of 10. It is the best free AI browser for people who research, compare and summarize all day, and the cross-tab assistant alone justifies a trial. The agent is impressive when it works, but reliability gaps and unsolved prompt injection risks mean you should supervise it and keep it away from sensitive accounts. Install it alongside your current browser, use it for reading and research for a week, and decide from there. Features and prices change quickly, so check Perplexity’s site for the current Comet and plan details before you subscribe.