I tested COMET, Perplexity's AI-powered browser

Why I Wanted to Test Comet, Perplexity's New AI Browser

I am passionate about new technologies, especially artificial intelligence. Over the years, I have tested numerous AI-based tools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's NotebookLM, DeepSeek, and even briefly Claude. Each offered a unique experience, but I have always been looking for solutions that could truly transform how we interact with information.

When I learned about the launch of Comet, Perplexity's new AI-based browser, following Ludovic Salenne's excellent presentation, I immediately wanted to try it. My goal was simple: to form an informed opinion on this promising technology and understand what unique value it could bring to the already rich ecosystem of artificial intelligence tools.

What Exactly Did I Do?

The first step was simple: I downloaded Comet, a free and incredibly well-designed tool. What struck me was the seamless transition between Google Chrome and Perplexity. In just a few clicks, Comet was able to absorb everything I had accumulated in Chrome over the years: my tabs, sessions, passwords, and all my information. Everything was pre-connected and pre-filled as soon as I interacted with a form.

Of course, a few adjustments were necessary: some passwords or forms had to be manually entered, but overall, the migration was fast and efficient.

To go further, I purchased a subscription to the Pro version ($20 per month). This allowed me to test all of Comet's functionalities, especially the tool that seemed the most revolutionary: the Comet assistant, based on Agentic AI.

What I Tested

Classic Browser Use

My very first test had nothing to do with Agentic AI. It was simply about using the browser. Broadly speaking, Comet is very similar to Chrome: nothing is confusing, many features are similar, and you find your way around very quickly. It feels like being at home.

But the real difference lies in tab management. I don't know how you organize your Google Chrome, but for me, there are always between 5 and 10 windows open, each containing 3 to 15 tabs. With Chrome's current system, finding a specific tab is often a headache—a real sinkhole of lost time.

With Perplexity Comet, it's totally different. The browser offers a simple and effective system for grouping tabs by group, with customizable colors. You can close and reopen all groups with a single action. This tab management feature is a real success: it won me over from the start, and spoiler alert, it might still be the part of Comet I prefer today.

The Agentic AI, the Comet Assistant

1. First Test - Groceries

Next, I moved on to Comet's most distinguishing and unique aspect: Agentic AI, the integrated browser assistant. I conducted several tests to explore its capabilities, and the first was to analyze my grocery list.

For this, I connected to intermarché.com via Comet with my credentials and gave the assistant direct access to my account, as if it were taking control of my browser. I asked Comet to examine my past purchases and compile a list of products I buy almost every week to analyze my consumption habits.

The result was impressive: Comet described step-by-step everything it was doing. It analyzed the page, took screenshots, identified where to click, changed pages, found invoices... Its detailed reasoning is fascinating to observe, showing how intelligent the AI can be on certain complex tasks.

But this test unfortunately ended in failure. On Intermarché, the receipts are in PDF format, and Comet was unable to either download or read these files. Despite its demonstration of logic and control, the Agentic AI still runs into certain technical limits.

2. Second Test - Cleaning Up My Inbox

For this second test, I gave Comet access to my inbox, which I have been using for nearly 15 years. The goal was to see if the Agentic AI could help me clean up and organize my mailbox.

First task: large files. I asked it to find all files with an attachment larger than 5 MB and place them in a folder so I could decide what to delete. After several minutes, Comet only managed to identify 5 or 6 files, even though my box probably contains hundreds of corresponding files over those 15 years.

Second task: unsubscribing from newsletters. I asked it to automatically spot newsletters by detecting words such as "désinscrire" (unsubscribe) or "unsubscribe" and open each email to click the unsubscribe link, letting it figure out the procedure itself. Once again, Comet only found 3 or 4 emails, far from the thousands that should have been concerned.

Third task: classifying invoices. Finally, I asked it to search for all emails containing a specific keyword related to invoices and move them to a specific folder. When I returned, I had a moment of panic: all the emails in my inbox had disappeared. Fortunately, they had not been deleted, but moved to another folder with a strange name, which allowed me to recover my entire inbox.

This second attempt confirms that, despite its promises, the Agentic AI is still limited on certain complex tasks and when managing a large quantity of personal data.

3. Third Test - Analyzing My YouTube Channel

For this third test, I wanted to use Comet to understand the performance of my YouTube videos and shorts. I am curious to know why some of my shorts reach several thousand views while others, very similar, plateau at a few hundred.

I gave Comet full access to YouTube Studio analytics and asked it to analyze my publications to identify:

• the optimal publication day and time,
• the best-performing titles,
• the themes that generate the most engagement.

After a long wait and several restarts, the result was disappointing. Comet found no useful information and advised me to download a CSV file from YouTube Studio to do the analysis myself.

I insisted that it try other methods and at least obtain some insights. The best analysis it could provide was limited to very general advice: make catchier titles, or certain themes appeal to certain audiences, but without any concrete examples.

This third test is, once again, a crushing failure for the Agentic AI, which shows its limits on the in-depth analysis of complex and varied data, and has the audacity to suggest I do its job!

4. Fourth Test - Organizing My Dropbox

For this fourth attempt, I gave Comet full access to my Dropbox. As an Android user for years and a loyal Dropbox user for over ten years, I use the Camera Upload feature: all photos taken by my phone and my wife's are automatically stored in the Camera Upload folder. Over time, this folder has accumulated more than 8,000 poorly organized photos. The goal was simple: ask Comet to classify the photos by date, creating a folder for each day and moving all corresponding photos into it.

On a cognitive level, Comet's performance is impressive. It thinks about each step: taking a screenshot, identifying where to click, counting files, selecting, creating new folders, moving files... The logic is there, clear and structured.

But the execution is catastrophic. After long minutes, Comet only moves 3 to 5 photos per cycle. It has to be manually restarted each time, and it sometimes forgets previous instructions, forcing you to repeat everything. After several days of testing, only 300 to 500 photos had been moved out of the 8,000 to be processed.

The verdict is clear: despite impressive reasoning, the Agentic AI remains extremely slow and laborious, to the point where it is faster and less frustrating to do the work yourself. Worse yet, the need to constantly repeat instructions gives the impression of working for the AI rather than the other way around.

5. Fifth Test - Planning Vacation with Google Calendar

For this last attempt, I gave Comet access to my Google Calendar as well as a G.sheet file containing our vacation schedule. In this file, each day was detailed: morning, noon, and evening activities, restaurants, departure times, addresses, reservation numbers, hotel phone numbers... Everything was ready to be turned into Google Calendar events.

As with the Dropbox test, Comet's reasoning is impressive. The Agentic AI takes control of both interfaces, figures out how to create a new event on Google Calendar, and correctly fills in the available fields. After a few minutes, the first event is perfectly created: correct time, correct day, good description, good color.

But, unfortunately, the overall execution is catastrophic. To fill a 5-day agenda with about 4 activities per day (about 20 events), it took me more than forty restarts for Comet to complete the task. The process was so laborious that it would have been much faster to create the events myself than to try to have the assistant do it.

This test once again confirms the general observation: intelligent reasoning but slow, unreliable execution, and very dependent on repeated user interventions.

To Go Further: Bugs and Security

Beyond the practical tests, two aspects deserve to be highlighted: bugs and security.

1. Bugs

During my use of Comet, I noticed several malfunctions:

• Browser slowdown: The assistant, probably very resource-intensive, tends to significantly slow down Comet. Some sites take a long time to load. Initially, I thought it was a connection problem, but opening the same site on Google Chrome simultaneously shows it instantly. The integrated artificial intelligence thus seems to limit the browser's ability to handle other tasks in parallel.
• Download problems: As soon as I try to download a file—PDF, MP3, or video—the download fails nine times out of ten, without any error message. Repeating the same operation on Chrome works immediately. This problem often forced me to revert to Chrome to accomplish simple tasks.

2. Security

Testing Comet is exciting for a new technology enthusiast, but one must be aware of the risks: the browser currently seems vulnerable to several security flaws.

A major risk is related to AI assistants and prompt injection. Malicious sites could insert hidden instructions into their code, invisible to a human user but interpreted by the AI. This could allow for password retrieval or access to sensitive sites like your bank or tax accounts. In their current state, these new technologies are not ready to address these risks, and pioneers who wish to venture in must remain very cautious.

Conclusion: Should You Dive In with Comet?

So, should you download Perplexity's Comet and pay for the Pro version to use the assistant in this new browser? I seriously considered the question. After weighing the pros and cons, here is my verdict:

The only feature that truly makes me want to continue using Comet is the tab management. For users like me, who sometimes have dozens of windows and hundreds of tabs open, this organization by colored groups makes the experience much smoother and more pleasant.

But beyond this innovation, the AI assistant has a monthly cost of $20 and, in the reality of my tests, proved to be generally ineffective. All the tests I performed—whether managing emails, analyzing YouTube videos, classifying Dropbox files, or scheduling a calendar—revealed extreme slowness, repeated failures, and a constant dependence on user restarts.

Comet also suffers from significant bugs and presents concerning security flaws, particularly related to malicious prompt injection, which makes the experience risky for any unsuspecting user.

As for me, I will be uninstalling Comet and returning to my good old Google Chrome, which certainly doesn't offer integrated AI, but reliably and securely fulfills its role.

Julien Rio.