🧨 The Next AI Battleground Is Your Browser

4 min read.

Author

Midas AI Research
July 18, 2025

Perplexity’s CEO just made a bold claim.

The real AI killer app is not a chatbot, not a model, and not the cloud.
It is your browser.

Comet, their new AI powered browser, is designed to turn ordinary tabs into intelligent workspaces. From summarizing web pages to managing email, this tool blends AI into your daily flow without ever leaving the page.

The secret is simple. The browser already knows what you are doing. And now, it is smart enough to help.

🧠 A Side Panel That Works Like a Real Assistant

Comet is built on Chromium, so it looks and feels like what you already use.
But inside is a side panel called the sidecar.

That is where the magic happens.

Ask questions about what you are viewing. Pull summaries, write emails, or plan trips directly from your tabs. You never need to copy paste anything. It just works.

The assistant uses local context, combining your browsing session with AI reasoning to act faster and smarter. Privacy is built in. Nothing is sent unless you approve it.

Models like Gemini and Claude are working behind the scenes. But the experience feels effortless.

🚀 Why This Changes the Game for Builders

Most AI tools live in separate apps or chatbots. That means context switching, messy integrations, and low usage.

This is different.

By embedding AI directly into the browser, Comet turns every website into a launchpad. Productive workflows become agent powered. Search becomes active. Reading becomes doing.

For product teams, this shows where AI belongs. Right next to the user.
For founders, it is a signal. Browsers may become the new frontier for agentic experiences.
For enterprises, this could unlock secure automation layered on top of internal tools.

⚠️ What to Watch as It Rolls Out

Comet is still in private beta. It requires local compute and system permissions. But the team is iterating quickly and expects to expand access soon.

Competitors are coming. Microsoft is already testing AI first versions of Edge. Google is embedding Gemini into Chrome. Expect a flood of activity as companies race to win the browser battle.

Perplexity plans to monetize with usage based pricing. But the pressure will be on to keep the core experience clean and free for most users.

And the big variable is trust.

If AI is helping in your browser, it needs to be secure, private, and predictable. That will make or break adoption.

🧭 If You Are Building

Now is the moment to experiment with browser native agents.

Think about how your product could live inside a panel. How can AI understand what your users are doing, and offer real value without needing access to everything?

Keep an eye on Perplexity. But more importantly, study how the browser itself is becoming the operating system for the next generation of AI.

Because this is not just a new interface. It is a new paradigm.

🗞️ Sources