Speaking of browser wars… Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said on a TBPN podcast that one reason the company is building its own browser is to collect data on everything users do outside of its own app so that it can sell premium ads. The browser, named Comet, suffered setbacks but is on track to be launched in May. Wow, where can I be first in line to download that piece of malware!
Srinivas said:
“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you. Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal. On the other hand, what are the things you’re buying; which hotels are you going [to]; which restaurants are you going to; what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you.”
Srinivas believes that Perplexity's users will be fine with this type of tracking because the ads would be more relevant to them. (Just what every Internet user ever wanted.)
What decade did this guy wake up in?
His comments sound like they're coming from the early 2000s, only he's saying the things out loud that tech companies kept to themselves back then. As the world moves towards user privacy, personal data ownership, and less tracking — Perplexity appears to be building the thing that everyone has already learned that they hate about Google, Meta, and other tech companies: the insane tracking!
His other reasons for building a browser make sense though:
“The reason we’re doing the browser is that it might be the best way to build agents. On both iOS and Android, we don’t have OS level control. You cannot easily call apps and access their information… So, we need to build an OS-level agent, and a browser is essentially a containerized operating system. It can let you access other third-party services through hidden tabs if you’re already logged into them, scrape the page on the client side, and perform reasoning and take actions on your behalf. That’s the architecture that appeals to us… Answering questions is going to be a commodity. We need to build our next set of advantages in performing actions… The browser is the best place to take action for people.”
Users will just have to decide if they want to give up their entire Internet browsing history to yet another company in exchange for those cool features.