- Perplexity’s AI-powered Comet browser is now available on Android
- The app includes voice chat, instant summaries, and built-in AI assistance while browsing
- It’s one of the first browsers designed from the ground up to be a mobile AI co-pilot
Perplexity Comet browser has officially launched on Android, marking one of the first full-fledged attempts to reimagine mobile browsers around AI assistants. Comet is positioning itself ahead of the almost inevitable release of a mobile version of ChatGPT’s Atlas, which is still limited to Mac, or Google‘s likely rebuild of the mobile version of Chrome around Gemini.
The Android edition of Comet, like the desktop version, lets you ask questions about what’s in your tabs, summarize anything you’re reading, and speak with voice mode to chat about what you’re looking for. It doesn’t have all of the recent upgrades and enhancements of the original Comet, and there’s no history or bookmark syncing between mobile and desktop, yet. Still, it’s one of the most fully realized stabs at turning mobile browsing into a two-way conversation.
The voice interface is likely to be a main attraction for potential users, since mobile browsers are more useful when your hands are full or you’re otherwise unable to type on the screen.
Comet’s arrival on Android matters because phones are where we live now. Most of us aren’t browsing from big screens or hunting for answers in full-size tabs. Toggling between apps and scrolling on small screens is much more common. Comet tries to make that easier by skipping the tap-and-type routine and jumping straight into answers.
This isn’t just a Chrome clone with an AI plug-in. On desktop, Comet already drew attention for its baked-in assistant and summarization tools. The mobile version brings that vision into your pocket, including ad blocking, and on-the-fly analysis of whatever you’re looking at to go with the voice chat.
Moving Comet
Not that it’s perfect. As Comet is doing more than just loading pages, it might feel a little slower on occasion. And getting a summary of a long article or forum thread isn’t instantaneous. But, if you’re okay with a slight delay, the results definitely fulfill the requests.
After so long a period when it felt like companies needed a unique app for every feature, it’s notable that Perplexity is making its capabilities part of a browser, instead of just leaving it to Chrome or Safari. Comet’s pitch is more about giving a browser an ever-present companion to distill and compare what you see to the rest of the internet. And eventually, with agentic tools, it might act on your behalf.
Comet’s allure isn’t entirely different from what Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini both offer, not to mention independent platforms like Brave and the Leo assistant baked into the browser’s privacy-first DNA. Comet’s notion of AI as part of the default browsing experience is still untested, however.
Some people will embrace having an extra brain riding shotgun through their web sessions. Others might bristle at the notion of a browser interpreting what they’re reading. But making browsing more of a dialogue isn’t terrible if done right, especially when the web-browsing experience feels degraded in recent years. Perplexity is betting that people are ready for something like Comet to bring us the answers that can feel like far too much effort to obtain when browsing alone.
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ESchwartzwrites@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
