Two major artificial intelligence (AI) companies are reportedly launching web browsers to rival Google Search’s dominance.
Perplexity AI announced Wednesday that it launched Comet, an independent search engine for Mac and Windows that bypasses traditional browsers like Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari.
The search engine is so far only available to people subscribed to Perplexity Max and a small pool of people who received invitations to try out the new platform.
In a demonstration of the new search engine, a user searches in Perplexity and asks it to put together a shopping list for two dishes that can be accessed on a grocery website, and then generates a recipe to put it together.
Comet will also have an AI assistant that can click, type, submit, and autofill for the user. It will also be able to manage people’s emails and calendars and highlight interesting news from their feeds.
Meanwhile, not much is known yet about OpenAI’s project, but two sources told Reuters that the browser will keep user interactions with AI chatbot ChatGPT instead of clicking through to different websites.
The browser’s launch is part of OpenAI’s strategy to weave services across people’s personal and work lives, Reuters reported.
Browsers come as Google faces antitrust fines, lawsuits
Google’s Chrome browser holds 68.4 per cent of the globe’s market share for search browsers, according to data from web traffic analysis website StatCounter.
The launch of the AI browsers come amid a challenge to Google’s power in online search. Last week, the European Court of Justice’s advocate general suggested that Google’s appeal against a €4.1 billion fine for anti-competitive behaviour be dismissed.
Also in the European Union, Reuters reported that a group of independent publishers mounted another antitrust case against Google’s AI overviews, alleging that the AI-generated summaries cause significant traffic loss, readership, and revenue loss to publishers.
In a 2024 US antitrust trial against Google, a US district judge ruled that the company had illegally monopolised search after it secured agreements from web browsers to be their default search engine so it would receive more advertising dollars than its competitors.
Google is also facing antitrust investigations or class action lawsuits in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan.
