What Is an AI Browser? Comet and the New Way We're Browsing the Internet in 2026

I watched my cousin ask her browser to “find me a flight to Tokyo under £600 next month and book the cheapest one that doesn’t have a layover longer than two hours,” and then just… walk away to make tea. When she came back, it had actually compared options across multiple sites and had a booking ready for her to confirm. That moment genuinely stopped me — this wasn’t a search engine giving her links to click through. It was closer to having an assistant physically sitting at the keyboard doing the work for her.

That’s the shift happening with AI browsers right now, and if you haven’t come across the term yet, you almost certainly will soon.

Table of Contents

What Exactly Is an AI Browser?

Illustration of an AI browser interface with a prompt box replacing the address bar

An AI browser, sometimes called an “agentic browser,” is a web browser with an AI system built directly into how it works, rather than bolted on as a chatbot sidebar. Instead of a traditional URL bar and a list of blue links, the interface centers on a prompt box where you type what you want, and the browser goes and finds or does it for you. UCStrategies

The key word here is “does.” Older AI assistants could summarize a page or answer a question about it. These newer browsers can actually navigate websites on your behalf — clicking, scrolling, filling out forms, and making sequential decisions across a multi-step task, not just suggesting what you should click next. Switchtools

The Two Big Names Right Now

The most talked-about entrants are Perplexity’s Comet and OpenAI’s Atlas, and they’ve taken slightly different approaches.

Comet uses Claude for its reasoning and is available across Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, while Atlas has so far been limited to macOS. That cross-platform reach has clearly paid off — by April 2026, Comet reportedly accounted for roughly 48% of all tracked agentic web traffic, an enormous jump from the year before. Notably, Atlas is set to be retired in August 2026, while Comet has continued expanding into enterprise deployments. Switchtools + 2

Both browsers are built on Chromium, the same open-source foundation used by Chrome and Edge, so the browsing experience itself feels familiar even as the AI layer underneath changes how you actually use it.

What Can You Actually Do With One?

Illustration of AI browser tasks like shopping, email, and research automation

In practical terms, people are using AI browsers for tasks like:

Comparison shopping — asking it to find and compare prices across multiple retailers instead of opening a dozen tabs yourself.
Research synthesis — pulling information from several sources into one coherent, cited summary instead of reading each page individually.
Email and form handling — drafting responses or filling out repetitive forms based on your instructions.
Travel booking — searching, comparing, and completing bookings across sites with a single request.
Cross-tab tasks — pulling information from multiple open tabs to complete one combined task, something a traditional browser simply can’t do on its own.

The genuine appeal is time. Tasks that used to mean juggling ten open tabs and a spreadsheet now happen through a single conversation.

The Trade-Off: How Much Access Are You Giving It?

Illustration representing safety and permission controls when using an AI browser

Here’s where it’s worth slowing down before diving in headfirst. For an AI browser to book a flight or fill out a form, it needs meaningful access to your accounts, logins, and browsing sessions. Because the browser sits at the center of nearly everything you do online, an agent operating inside it can potentially act on anything your logged-in sessions expose, not just what a single app would normally allow. SoftwareSeni

That power has already attracted attention from security researchers. Analysts have flagged early cases of AI browsers being manipulated into patterns resembling fraud, along with broader risks like an agent being tricked into taking unintended actions across different accounts or sites. Perplexity has responded by adding a confirmation step before consequential actions like purchases, and enterprise versions now include admin-level controls built with input from cybersecurity firms. HUMAN Security Switchtools

None of this means these tools are unsafe to use casually — it just means treating them the way you’d treat any assistant with access to your accounts: give it clear instructions, review what it’s about to do before confirming a purchase, and don’t hand it access to accounts you wouldn’t want it acting on autonomously.

Should You Actually Switch?

For most casual users, this isn’t an all-or-nothing decision. The free tier of a tool like Comet is a reasonable way to try out core browsing and summarization features without committing to anything, with paid tiers available if you find yourself relying on deeper research or automated tasks regularly. Switchtools

A few honest observations if you’re deciding whether it’s worth it:

If most of your browsing is casual reading and social media, you probably won’t notice much difference day to day.
If you regularly do repetitive multi-step tasks — comparison shopping, research, booking things — the time savings can be genuinely significant.
If you’re security-conscious or share a device, think carefully about which accounts you let it act on before granting broad access.

Getting Started Safely

If you want to try an AI browser without diving in blind, a few habits help:

Start with read-only tasks — research and summarization — before letting it complete purchases or form submissions on your behalf.
Review confirmation prompts carefully rather than clicking through them automatically, especially for anything involving payment.
Keep sensitive accounts separate if possible, rather than staying logged into everything in the same browser session.
Check what permissions it’s requesting before granting broad access to your email or financial accounts.

Where This Is Heading

This isn’t a passing trend. The shift from research demo to mainstream consumer product happened in roughly fifteen months, and the pace shows no sign of slowing, with major browser makers now racing to add similar AI capabilities directly into their existing products rather than ceding the category entirely to standalone apps. Whether or not you jump in now, it’s worth understanding what these tools do, because there’s a good chance the browser you’re using in a year or two will work a lot more like this than the one you’re using today. No Hacks

Worth Remembering

AI browsers genuinely change what “browsing the internet” means — from clicking through pages yourself to describing what you want and letting the browser handle the legwork. The convenience is real, but so is the trade-off in access and control. Try it on something low-stakes first, get a feel for how it behaves, and decide from there how much of your browsing you’re comfortable handing over.