The New Battlefield Between Tech Giants Perplexity AI, a leading AI search platform, has launched the mobile version of its AI-driven Comet web browser, extending its competition with Google to the search engine giant’s Android operating system. Recently, OpenAI released its first fully AI-powered “AI web browser.” These major moves in the browser space signal that the browser—one of the most iconic products of the Internet era and the gateway for users to access the Internet—has become inseparable from AI. In other words, the deep integration of browsers and AI will become the core direction of browser technology iteration.

This also means that the AI search leader, along with ChatGPT’s developer (valued at $500 billion), will launch a new round of fierce competition against Google—a leader in the AI application ecosystem and search engine field—on a new battlefield.

Beejoli Shah, a spokesperson for Perplexity, stated that the AI-driven Comet browser is now available on the Android platform, and the iOS version for Apple Inc. devices is expected to be launched “very soon.” She added that many wireless service providers and consumer electronics manufacturers have been requesting “the integration of the Comet AI browser into their user experience ecosystems.”

The Comet AI browser was initially released in a limited form in July and then widely rolled out to Mac and Windows desktop users in October. The browser comes with an all-around AI assistant, which uses Perplexity’s proprietary large AI model-driven search engine to answer all user questions.

This AI assistant can summarize the core content of webpages in all open tabs and provide proactive and in-depth responses to search queries related to the websites the user has opened. In addition, it can complete task flows online on behalf of users, who can issue commands directly through text or voice instructions. However, Perplexity declined to disclose how many users are actively using the browser.

OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity Stage a “Three-Way Battle” in AI Browsers

The AI startup has been striving to integrate its AI assistant into more Internet or smartphone mobile platforms and corresponding services, attempting to launch a long-term challenge in Google’s core areas of expertise—search engines and the Chrome browser—under Alphabet Inc.

Other AI chatbot developers have also actively embedded their proprietary large AI model technologies into browser products, with the latest example being OpenAI’s launch of its Atlas AI browser. Given that 70% of Internet traffic in recent years has occurred on mobile consumer electronic devices (according to Similarweb data), AI developers and search engine companies are particularly eager to seize a larger share of consumers’ smartphone mobile traffic or occupy more of users’ overall mobile usage time.

With the launch of the Android version, Comet has been adjusted in design to a certain extent for smaller-sized mobile devices, but its functions are basically similar. Sample images provided by Perplexity show that the AI assistant will actively summarize and compare user reviews of a smart refrigerator on online service websites such as Best Buy, and check whether the product can be conveniently delivered to New York. Like the desktop version, the Comet app also has a built-in ad-blocking feature.

Perplexity’s major competitors in the AI browser field include not only Google, the established leader in online search. Microsoft, another tech giant, has also integrated its Copilot AI personal assistant into the Microsoft Edge browser ecosystem on both desktop and mobile platforms over the past year. Meanwhile, OpenAI executives stated last week that the company is actively exploring the final form of the mobile version of the Atlas AI browser.

The AI browser, named ChatGPT Atlas, aims to provide a more personalized web experience and can handle tasks such as booking flights and editing documents on behalf of users. Whenever users visit a website in the browser, they will see an “Ask ChatGPT” option; clicking it will pop up a sidebar for synchronized and in-depth AI interaction with the page content. For example, users can open a long movie review and ask ChatGPT to summarize it, or find a recipe and let ChatGPT help order all the required ingredients online according to personal tastes.

“This is a fully AI-driven web browser built around ChatGPT,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, during a live event. He emphasized that AI “represents a rare, once-in-a-decade major technological opportunity” that allows people to rethink the way browsers are used.

Earlier in September, Google introduced its Gemini large AI model into its Chrome search browser, and launched the mobile version shortly thereafter. In addition to other regular search tasks, Google’s AI can respond to any request, provide in-depth explanations of visited webpages, extract information across multiple tabs, and even quickly retrieve some previously accidentally closed websites.

Browsers Evolve from the Internet Era to the AI Era

In the “AI-native era,” AI applications are no longer plug-ins or malicious add-ons, but default sidebars and user action portals accompanying every webpage, allowing users to directly let the browser “understand and handle tasks on their behalf.” This is a leap from an “information window” to an “action workbench.”

From Chrome integrating Gemini and Edge launching Copilot Mode, to OpenAI launching Atlas, and the latest launch of Perplexity’s Comet AI browser on mobile, the browser—the gateway to the Internet—is evolving from a “pure portal to Internet access” to an “AI-driven intelligent search portal.” This also verifies the prediction of some Wall Street analysts regarding the AI process: we are now in the early stage of the transition from the Internet era to the artificial intelligence era.

Not only Perplexity AI has begun to embed generative AI applications and AI agents into browsers, but OpenAI and Google are also focusing on deeply integrating the ChatGPT AI ecosystem and the Gemini large AI model system into browser platforms, such as in-page explanations, cross-tab extraction, retrieving closed websites, and one-click “Summarize page” on Android. A number of AI startups focusing on “AI + search” (such as Opera) are also constantly iterating, trying to turn web browsers into personalized AI assistants/agents. The emergence of AI browsers Comet and Atlas undoubtedly makes this trend of AI browsers more mainstream and systematic.