Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, has shared insights on the potential future capabilities of the Comet browser, suggesting it could one day effectively manage recruitment tasks with ease. In his interview, Srinivas noted that while the AI-enhanced browser currently lacks this ability, it might soon be capable of handling an entire week’s worth of a recruiter’s duties with just a single prompt. At present, the Comet browser is in beta, exclusively available to Perplexity’s Max subscribers, and compatible with both Windows and macOS operating systems.
Perplexity CEO Suggests Browser May Tackle Recruitment Duties
During a recent discussion with Technology News on the Decoder podcast, Srinivas elaborated on the rationale for utilizing Chromium as the foundation for the Comet browser. He detailed the specific tasks the browser can execute and provided insight into the company’s revenue model for this new product.
When questioned about Comet’s limitations, Srinivas acknowledged that the browser may face challenges with “long-horizon tasks” that require more than 15 minutes to complete. He cited an instance where generating a list of engineers who graduated from a particular university and have worked at a specific company might not be achievable with a single prompt.
Despite these challenges, he emphasized that users can still achieve these tasks by manually orchestrating the information, combining various inputs. However, he expressed optimism that advancements in reasoning models could enable the Comet browser to manage such tasks autonomously within a year.
“I believe that, given the right browser environment with access to multiple tabs and tools, a sufficiently advanced reasoning model could enable all these tasks to become possible, effectively allowing a week’s work of a recruiter to be completed with just one prompt,” Srinivas was quoted by Technology News.
Srinivas also explained the decision to base Comet on Chromium rather than creating a browser from the ground up. He praised Chromium’s backend performance, security features, and encryption capabilities, noting its prominence in the market. He asserted that the company did not wish to “reinvent the wheel” when an established solution was available.
Regarding the revenue strategy, Srinivas indicated that if the AI agents integrated into the browser become more dependable, Perplexity may adopt a pay-per-use approach in the future. This model could involve charging users about $20 (approximately ₹1,700) for individual tasks, in contrast to a $200 (around ₹17,300) monthly subscription fee.
