New level of personal data collection

The AI company wants to track everything you do

The AI company Perplexity launches the browser Comet to track everything you do online even when you are not browsing.

Ove Kaufeldt

Published 2 May 2025 - 10:49

The AI company Perplexity, which is one of the companies that has expressed interest in buying the browser Chrome, is preparing to launch its own browser named Comet. In addition to ensuring the operation of the company's AI-driven search engine, the main goal of Comet is to collect data on everything the user does online, from users' shopping habits and hotel bookings to which restaurants they visit and how they browse the internet.

By collecting this comprehensive information, Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, hopes to create an even more detailed and dynamic user profile - a strategy that aims to enable the display of what are called hyper-personalised ads. According to Srinivas, work-related search queries alone are not enough to get a complete picture of the user's interests, which is why they want to collect data from other parts of the digital daily life, even outside what the user does with the browser. This aggressive data collection strategy has raised privacy concerns and sparked debate about the balance between technological advancement and personal privacy protection.

Comet, which despite some development challenges is planned to be launched in May, marks the company's attempt to take a larger place in a competitive market. While major tech giants like Google, Meta, and Apple have long used integrated data collection to drive their advertising platforms, Perplexity's model aims to extend tracking even beyond the confines of its own app. A central part of the strategy is that users, according to Srinivas, should be willing to accept extensive data collection in exchange for receiving more relevant ads.

A significant challenge ahead is how Comet will handle the strict requirements imposed by GDPR within the EU. According to the regulations, explicit consent is often required for the type of extensive tracking that Perplexity's vision with Comet entails, which means that a launch in the EU becomes more complex than in other parts of the world where the rules are less restrictive.