The Comet's Tale ☄️ — Issue #028: Comet Goes Free, AI Assistants Go Agentic: Perplexity’s 6X Curiosity Leap

Perplexity just made Comet—the $200/month AI browser that was the most sought-after product of 2025—completely free to the entire world. Not freemium. Not limited beta. Free. Full stop.

But that's not the story.

The story is what happened next: users who downloaded Comet increased their question volume by 6-18X in the first 24 hours. The internet doesn't just work better on Comet. The internet is fundamentally different on Comet. When asking becomes frictionless, curiosity becomes your default mode.

And while everyone's celebrating free Comet, they're missing the bigger shift buried in the announcement: Background Assistants—autonomous AI agents that work simultaneously and asynchronously while you do literally anything else. This isn't another chatbot. This is your personal team executing complex, multi-step workflows in parallel while you're making a sandwich.

Here's why this changes everything for operators who actually ship.

🚀 The Breakthrough (WHAT):
Perplexity released Comet browser worldwide for free, launched Background Assistants for Max users ($200/month), integrated with Firefox globally, and introduced Deep Research for all users (free tier gets limited queries, Pro gets unlimited).

🚀 The Opportunity (WHY):
Comet users ask 6-18X more questions in their first day because curiosity becomes frictionless. Background Assistants execute multiple complex tasks simultaneously—send emails, add concert tickets to cart, book flights—all in parallel while you stay in flow. Deep Research autonomously conducts hours of expert-level analysis in 2-4 minutes, scoring 21.1% on Humanity's Last Exam (beating Gemini Thinking's 6.2%, Grok-2's 3.8%, GPT-4o's 3.3%).

🚀 The Implementation (HOW):
Download Comet here (desktop, mobile coming soon with voice). Firefox users: enable Perplexity via address bar search button or set as default in Settings. Max subscribers: access Background Assistants + Email Assistant + unlimited Labs to architect entire projects in one query. All users can now use Deep Research mode—select from mode dropdown before submitting your query.

The math doesn't lie: Millions joined the waitlist faster than Perplexity could release invites. Now the wait is over. Comet—built on Chromium with Perplexity's AI engine at its core—is available to everyone, everywhere, for zero dollars.

What you get with free Comet:

Users with Comet access report it fundamentally changes how they work online. The Comet Assistant browses with you—answering questions, automating tasks, maintaining context—without breaking your flow.

Mobile + Voice Coming Soon:
Comet mobile apps (iOS/Android) are in preview with industry-leading voice technology, letting you interact with assistants hands-free anywhere.

This is where it gets wild. Perplexity just launched Background Assistants—AI agents that work for you simultaneously, in parallel, while you focus on what actually matters.

How it works:
You give your assistant multiple tasks: "Send this email draft, add the cheapest concert tickets to my cart, find the best direct flight on October 20th." Then you walk away. Make coffee. The assistants execute everything in the background. You check progress via a central dashboard ("mission control"), jump in to course-correct if needed, or let them finish autonomously.

This breaks the chatbot paradigm entirely. Email Assistant (Max subscribers, $200/month) already proved the concept—cc your assistant on any thread and it handles scheduling, drafts replies in your tone, manages inbox chaos without you opening a separate app.

Background Assistants extend this to everything: research chains, data aggregation, multi-step workflows across apps. Max users also get "better connectors" so assistants access other apps on your computer.

The cost math: One Background Assistant task costs fractions of a dollar. The alternative? Hours of manual context-switching and tab juggling.

Track metrics: minutes saved vs. baseline, retries avoided, sources per claim.

Deep Research: Free for All, Unlimited for Pro

Perplexity's Deep Research mode is now available to everyone—not just Pro/Max subscribers. It spends 2-4 minutes autonomously conducting research that would take human experts many hours: dozens of searches, hundreds of sources, reasoned synthesis into comprehensive reports.

Performance on Humanity's Last Exam (expert-level questions across academic fields):

Free users get a limited number of Deep Research queries per day. Pro subscribers ($20/month) get unlimited queries. Max subscribers ($200/month) get unlimited access to the most powerful models powering Deep Research.

Export options: PDF or Perplexity Page for easy sharing.

Firefox Integration: Perplexity Goes Global on Desktop

Mozilla officially added Perplexity as a search engine option in Firefox—globally, for all desktop users. After positive feedback during pilot testing in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, the rollout is now worldwide (mobile coming soon).

Why it matters: Perplexity delivers conversational answers with verified citations instead of link lists—right in Firefox's address bar. Mozilla emphasized that Perplexity "maintains strict prohibitions against selling or sharing personal data".

How to enable: Click the unified search button in Firefox's address bar or set Perplexity as default search engine in Settings.

Comet's Personal Search feature uses Comet Intelligence to analyze your browsing history and retrieve relevant information instantly. You can ask Comet to search through your history, videos, and documents—turning your browser into a personal knowledge base that learns how you think.

Problem:
You visit dozens of tabs daily for work—competitor research, product docs, customer threads, internal wikis. Remembering where you saw a specific detail two weeks ago? Impossible. Traditional browser history search is keyword-only and doesn't understand context.

Solution:
Comet Intelligence indexes your browsing activity and uses AI to understand what you were researching, why it mattered, and how it connects to your current question.

Step-by-Step Setup:

Advanced Use Case: @tab Queries

Use the @tab feature to focus your questions on specific open tabs. Example: You have 10 tabs open researching AI search engines. Ask: "@tab Summarize the key differences across these comparison articles." Comet reads all 10 tabs and synthesizes insights without you manually switching between them.

Browser Command Shortcuts:

Comet executes these commands instantly—no manual dragging or clicking.

Code Example (Gmail Connector for Calendar Queries):

Once you connect Gmail, ask Comet: "When is my daughter's next school closure day?" Comet searches your email threads, finds the school calendar attachment, and pulls the exact date. Or: "Who am I meeting with today?" Comet parses your calendar invites and surfaces attendee details.

Why This Beats ChatGPT:

ChatGPT doesn't have access to your browser history, open tabs, or personal context unless you manually feed it everything. Comet Intelligence is always on, learning passively, and retrieving relevant info the moment you ask—without breaking your workflow.

"I'm drowning in tabs and context-switching between ChatGPT for writing, Perplexity for research, and Google for quick lookups. How do I consolidate this chaos into a single workflow that doesn't make me want to throw my laptop out the window?" -Kim J.

Context: Kim’s not alone. The average knowledge worker has 10+ tabs open, switches apps 30+ times per hour, and loses ~23 minutes per context switch recovering focus (UC Irvine study). The "best tool for each job" strategy sounds smart until you realize the overhead of switching destroys any productivity gains.

The real question isn't "Which tool is best?" It's: "Which tool minimizes friction while maintaining quality?"

Answer: The One-Browser Strategy with Comet

Stop fighting the tool sprawl. Consolidate everything into Comet as your single source of truth. Here's how:

1. Replace Google with Comet's Default Search

Comet uses Perplexity as your primary search engine. Instead of clicking through 10 blue links, you get direct answers with citations—instantly. For quick facts (weather, sports scores, stock prices), Comet still delivers fast. For deep research, it seamlessly escalates to Pro Search or Deep Research mode.

2. Replace ChatGPT Tabs with Comet Assistant

Every new tab in Comet has a Comet Assistant ready to answer questions or execute tasks. You don't need to switch to ChatGPT for brainstorming, drafting, or analyzing—just ask in the tab you're already in. Comet Assistant uses GPT-5, Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Sonar models—whatever's optimal for your query.

3. Use @tab Queries for Multi-Source Synthesis

When you have 5+ tabs open for research, don't manually summarize them. Ask Comet: "@tab Compare the key arguments across these articles." Comet reads all tabs, synthesizes insights, and cites sources. You stay in flow.

4. Offload Repetitive Tasks to Background Assistants (Max)

If you're on Max ($200/month), use Background Assistants for multi-step workflows: "Draft email to client summarizing this research, add the top 3 flight options to my calendar as events, and find the cheapest hotel near the venue." The assistants work in parallel while you keep doing high-value work.

5. Archive Deep Research with Spaces

Create a Space for each major project. Upload reference files (PDFs, spreadsheets, notes), add custom AI instructions, and run all research within that Space. Perplexity searches both your internal files and the live web, keeping everything organized in one place.

For one week, make Comet your only browser. Route everything through it:

Track how many times you're tempted to open ChatGPT or Google. By day 3, you'll notice the temptation drops because Comet handles 90% of your use cases without context-switching.

Bottom Line:

The best workflow isn't the one with the "best" tools. It's the one with the least friction. Comet consolidates search, research, synthesis, and task execution into a single interface that learns how you work. That's the unlock.

Here's the synthesis principle: Reduce friction, amplify curiosity.

Every tool added to your workflow creates overhead. Every context switch costs time. The operators winning in 2025 aren't using more tools—they're using better-integrated tools that remove cognitive load.

Comet going free isn't just a pricing strategy. It's a bet that once you experience frictionless curiosity—search, research, synthesis, and action in one interface—you won't go back. The 6-18X question volume increase proves the thesis.

But here's the deeper pattern: AI that works with you (not for you) becomes indispensable faster. Background Assistants don't replace your judgment—they execute your intent while you stay focused. Email Assistant doesn't write emails for you—it drafts them in your voice so you can edit and send. Labs doesn't do your thinking—it does your tedious assembly work.

This is the agentic shift. Your AI doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to be useful enough to trust, fast enough to rely on, and integrated enough to forget it's there.

Keep shipping, stay weird if it’s your thing, and Comet on! ☄️💫

— Chris Dukes
Managing Editor, The Comet's Tale ☄️
Founder/CEO, Parallax Analytics
Beta Tester, Perplexity Comet
parallax-ai.app | [email protected]

— Starfox 🦊
Personal AI Agent — Technical Architecture, Research Analysis, Workflow Optimization
Scan. Target. Architect. Research. Focus. Optimize. X‑ecute.

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