Why Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas Believes the Browser Is AI's Killer App
“The browser is the only way to build true agents.” – Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity
In a world dominated by AI chatbots and conversational interfaces, Aravind Srinivas is betting on something deceptively familiar: the web browser.
In a recent interview on Decoder with The Verge’s Alex Heath, Srinivas made the case for why Perplexity’s new browser, Comet, may be the most important frontier in AI today. While giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta chase multimodal models and API integrations, Perplexity is reimagining the browser as the operating system for intelligent agents.
For wantrepreneurs and early-stage founders, Srinivas’ vision offers a masterclass in product differentiation, timing, and daring to bet against the consensus.
From Chatbots to Agents: The Shift That Changes Everything
AI chatbots can answer your questions. But AI agents complete your tasks.
That’s the distinction Srinivas draws and the reason he believes the browser is the best environment for agents to operate.
“You want this one interface that the agent and the human can both operate in the same manner… That’s the browser.”
Unlike APIs or cloud tools that require complex permissions and server-side gymnastics, browsers already sit at the intersection of a user’s logged-in state, history, and daily workflows. With Comet, Perplexity turns the browser into a hybrid space, one where humans and agents can co-pilot everything from customer support to job searches.
The Browser as a New OS for Work
At the heart of Comet is its “sidecar” AI assistant, an always-available orchestration layer that runs alongside any webpage.
Users are using it to:
- Summarize and quote YouTube interviews on the fly
- Reply to Slack messages across 100+ channels
- Unsubscribe from spam emails
- Draft smart replies to Twitter posts or emails
- Search LinkedIn more effectively than LinkedIn Premium
“It almost feels like you should never watch a YouTube video standalone anymore… The AI can show you the timestamp and the snippet you care about.”
It’s not just about search or summaries, it’s about delegation. Comet turns browsing into prompted task execution, letting users trigger workflows with natural language.
Monetization at a Whole New Level: $2,000 AI Prompts?
Comet isn’t just a tech experiment. It’s a business model revolution.
Where most AI tools rely on flat subscriptions, Srinivas imagines a world where users pay per successful task because the value delivered far exceeds the price.
“If it helps you make a few million bucks, does it not make sense to spend $2,000 for that prompt?”
Founders, take note: Srinivas is building unit economics around outcomes, not usage. That opens the door to revenue models that look more like freelance labor platforms than SaaS tools.
Shipping Before It’s Perfect: Product Philosophy in Action
Despite its ambitious scope, Comet is still in beta. It’s sometimes buggy, brittle, or unpredictable. And Srinivas is fine with that.
“You want to be a little early. A little edgy. Most people are going to wait until everything works. We’re building for the ones who won’t.”
Rather than waiting for OpenAI to launch a perfect agent platform or for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to mature, Perplexity is shipping now, iterating fast, and gathering real-world use cases in public.
What Founders Can Learn from Perplexity’s Strategy
Here are three strategic takeaways from Aravind Srinivas’ vision:
- Pick the Interface Everyone Already Uses
By building on Chromium, Comet inherits the familiar UX of Chrome. Users can import all their data, logins, and extensions in one click. That makes onboarding easy—for both the human and the AI.
- Build Infrastructure + Product
Perplexity isn’t just slapping an AI on a browser. It’s built its own search engine, its own reasoning layer, and now, its own operating environment. It’s the Google+Chrome strategy, rebuilt for AI-native workflows.
- Anticipate the Model Progress
Srinivas isn’t waiting for GPT-5 or Claude 4. He’s building product scaffolding now, so when those models do arrive, Perplexity can ride the next wave without starting from scratch.
Comet vs ChatGPT: A Different Bet
Srinivas isn’t trying to beat ChatGPT at its own game. He’s building something bigger than chat.
“The browser is bigger than chat. It’s the only way to build end-to-end workflows, personalization, memory, and context.”
In fact, Comet is more like an AI-first operating system than a chatbot. It lets users spin up agents that know their data, work across apps, and operate in their browser like personal coworkers.
Final Thought: The Interface Is the Innovation
If Srinivas is right, the next big shift in AI won’t come from a newer model. It’ll come from a better interface—one that finally makes agents usable, useful, and trustworthy.
For founders building in AI, productivity, or workflow automation, the lesson is clear: don’t just build smarter models—build better environments.
“I hope it becomes the one tool you think of when you want to actually get anything done.” – Aravind Srinivas
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