AI reignites browser wars as Perplexity challenges Chrome

By: Shantanu Bhattacharji

Comet is built on a bold yet simple idea: instead of digging through endless links, users receive direct, personalised answers in real time—transforming the browser from a static window into an intelligent assistant.

The browser wars are heating up again—but this time, the fight isn’t over bookmarks or loading speed. It’s about artificial intelligence (AI). 

Perplexity AI, a fast-growing startup backed by Nvidia, is poised to launch Comet, an AI-native web browser designed to rethink how people interact with information online. Its target is clear: Google Chrome, which dominates the browser market with a 68 per cent global share. Displacing it won’t be easy. Chrome benefits from deep integration with Google’s services, a loyal user base, and years of performance refinements. But Perplexity is betting that the next generation of users wants more than speed and tabs—they want intelligent help. 

Comet is built around a simple, yet ambitious idea: instead of clicking through dozens of links, users should be able to ask questions and get direct, relevant answers—summarised, contextualised, and personalised in real time. In this model, the browser acts less like a static window and more like a smart assistant. 

There’s reason to believe this model has legs. While the AI browser market is still in its infancy—worth $4.5 billion in 2024—it’s projected to grow nearly 17-fold to $76.8 billion by 2034, according to Market.US. That kind of potential explains why Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable company, is backing an AI-first approach to search and navigation. 

Perplexity’s conversational AI already powers its popular Q&A-style search tool. Integrating that into a browser could appeal to a rising class of users—students, researchers, professionals—who want answers, not just results. If Comet delivers on that promise, it could reshape how knowledge is consumed online. 

Still, Chrome remains deeply entrenched. It’s bundled with Android, tied to Google’s productivity suite, and optimised for performance across billions of devices. Dethroning it won’t happen overnight. But history offers perspective: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer once ruled the web—until a better product came along. 

Yet one question hangs in the air: is a new browser necessary when legacy ones are already adopting AI features? Comet will be free to use, but advanced functions—like agentic search and memory-based personalisation—may be behind a paywall. In a recent Reddit AMA, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said premium tools could be reserved for paid subscribers. Perplexity Pro, valued at around $200 annually, is currently being offered free to 360 million users of India’s Bharti Airtel. The top-tier version, Perplexity Max, costs $200 a month. Chrome, by comparison, is completely free. 

Even so, the shift toward AI-driven tools is accelerating. Between April 2024 and March 2025, the top 10 AI chatbots drew 55.2 billion visits—an 81 per cent jump from the previous year—while traffic to the top 10 search engines remained flat at 1.86 trillion, according to OneLittleWeb. That gap remains large, but the growth trajectory is clear. 

This is no longer just a battle among browsers. It’s a race to control how humans access, understand, and act on information. As large language models become more capable—summarising, reasoning, even executing tasks like emails or calendar updates—they blur the line between search engine, assistant, and browser. 

In this new paradigm, it’s not Chrome versus Safari—it’s browsers versus bots. The winners will be those who best understand user intent and reduce the distance between a question and its answer. For now, Google leads. But Comet may be the first real signal that the next era of the internet is already taking shape—and it’s powered by AI.