AI is changing pretty much every part of our lives nowadays, and browsers seem to be the current target. The first time I went hands-on with an AI browser was when Opera announced Neon as a concept browser (which is now finally publicly available).

I was lucky enough to be given access to Neon's developer beta, and even though it wasn't a final build, the concept behind it was simply incredible. I began using Neon to handle the monotonous tasks I'd catch myself doing, and that alone was enough to make me realize how game-changing AI browsers will be. Once I went hands-on with Neon, I began obsessively trying out every AI-powered browser I could find.

Perplexity's Comet has been one of my favorite AI browsers I've tried so far, partly because I absolutely love Perplexity. Though Comet is a browser with genuinely useful features, I've struggled to recommend it to most people because of how expensive it is. Well, that's no longer a problem.

You can now download Comet for free

As announced via a blog post, Comet can now be downloaded globally for completely free by clicking this link. If you haven't had the opportunity to explore Comet yet, it's Perplexity's AI-powered Chromium-based browser. It's built with AI at its core and lets you instantly access Perplexity, with its smart assistant residing on the sidebar at all times.

The assistant can perform all sorts of tasks like sorting your emails, analyzing your calendar and Gmail and letting you know what's important, and even taking matters into its own hands to respond to emails and schedule events. Email and calendar management isn't all it can do — it can even perform quick tasks like clearing out all your distracting tabs in one go or even booking a flight for you.

Perplexity first launched Comet under limited release on July 9, and the AI giant gave users two different options to access the browser. You could either sign up for Comet's waitlist (and Perplexity now claims that millions of people have joined the waitlist), or you needed to be subscribed to Perplexity Max, which only cost $200/month. The only way to get access to the browser without waiting for luck to strike and get off the waitlist was to get an invite code from someone who already had access to Comet.

That's precisely how I ended up getting access to Comet. A couple of weeks ago, PayPal and Venmo announced a collaboration with Perplexity that allowed users to skip the waitlist and get early access to Comet, along with a 12-month trial of Perplexity Pro (valued at $200/year). Now, the agentic AI browser is available to everyone for free, and you don't need to subscribe to any of Perplexity's paid plans to begin using it. Fortunately, this isn't a marketing gimmick either — the company explains that Comet will always be free.

Comet is currently desktop-only. Alongside announcing that the browser is now completely free to use, the company also revealed its plans to launch Comet's mobile app soon. Perplexity also announced its partners for its new standalone subscription, Comet Plus. This is a $5 standalone subscription, which Perplexity Pro and Max subscribers will get for free, giving users access to curated news content. Perplexity's Comet Plus partners include CNN, The Washington Post, Le Monde, and more.

I personally think it's quite admirable that Perplexity decided to make this move, given that most AI browsers nowadays are launching with a paywall. For instance, for full access to Opera Neon, you need to shell out $19.90/month! So, I'm glad more people will finally get to see how incredible Comet is!