Perplexity’s AI search engine handled 780 million queries in May, CEO Aravind Srinivas announced Thursday at Bloomberg’s Tech Summit. He highlighted a strong month-over-month growth rate exceeding 20%.
Srinivas noted the platform’s explosive growth since its 2022 debut. “On day one, we did just 3,000 queries,” he said. “Now, we’re at 30 million queries a day. If this growth continues, we could reach a billion queries per week within a year.”
Comet Browser to Drive Further Growth
Looking ahead, Srinivas pointed to Perplexity’s new browser project, Comet, as a key growth driver. He described the browser as a tool for “infinite retention,” integrating AI directly into the browsing experience with features like enhanced search bars and sidecar utilities.
“People are tired of legacy browsers like Chrome,” Srinivas said. “Comet will add more queries per user by being an active assistant, not just a tool.”
Srinivas explained that traditional AI answers often combine multiple searches into one. Comet aims to go further by completing entire browsing sessions with a single prompt, blending client- and server-side computing seamlessly.
“It’s not just another browser,” he said. “It’s a cognitive operating system that will be there for you anytime, handling work or life tasks proactively.”
Rethinking the Internet Experience
He emphasized the shift from browsing the internet to living on it, with much of daily life online. Personalized AI must live alongside users, fundamentally changing how people interact with the web.
Though details remain scarce, Srinivas mentioned in April that Comet’s development includes tracking user activity beyond the Perplexity app to support premium ad sales, drawing parallels to Google’s rise.
Comet is expected to launch in the coming weeks, according to Srinivas’s recent posts on X.
What The Author Thinks
The Comet browser represents an important evolution in how people interact with technology, blending AI’s power with everyday browsing. If successful, it could redefine user expectations by moving from passive search to active assistance. However, the ambition to track users for advertising raises ongoing concerns about privacy and data use that will need careful handling.
Featured image credit: The Japan Times
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