Perplexity Comet: Testing the NEW AI Web Browser - Marketing Against The Grain

Summary

Marketing Against The Grain: Episode Summary

Episode: Perplexity Comet: Testing the NEW AI Web Browser
Release Date: July 29, 2025
Host/Author: HubSpot Media
Guests: Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot’s CMO) and Kieran Flanagan (HubSpot's SVP of Marketing)

Introduction to Perplexity Comet Browser

In this episode, HubSpot Media’s podcast Marketing Against The Grain delves into the innovative Perplexity Comet browser. Hosted by Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, the episode serves as an in-depth exploration of this AI-native browser, showcasing its potential to revolutionize the way marketers interact with the internet.

Setting Up Perplexity Comet

The host begins by walking listeners through the initial setup of the Perplexity Comet browser. Requiring an invite code or a Perplexity Max subscription, the setup process includes personalizing the browser without importing existing data like history or bookmarks.

Notable Quote:
"I don't know if you're good enough to be my default browser. Help us improve the product." ([02:15])

Key Features Demonstrated

AI Assistant and Task Delegation

Perplexity Comet integrates a robust AI assistant directly into the browser, enabling users to manage their inboxes and calendars seamlessly. The assistant can prioritize emails, draft responses, and even automate calendar entries.

Notable Quote:
"When you're using an AI tool like Perplexity Comet, you can delegate basic tasks and get the gist in seconds." ([05:10])

Email and Calendar Integration

One standout feature is the browser’s ability to interact with Gmail and Google Calendar. The host demonstrates drafting a marketing email by researching Ramp.com and generating actionable recommendations for improvement.

Notable Quote:
"Perplexity Comet can not only draft an email but also pull in real-time data from your browsing to create personalized content." ([08:45])

Research and Content Creation

The AI assistant showcases its capability to conduct in-depth research, summarize content, and generate comprehensive reports. This feature is particularly beneficial for marketers conducting customer or competitor research.

Notable Quote:
"It really changes the game from just getting answers to taking actionable steps based on those answers." ([10:20])

Summarization and Voice Browsing

Perplexity Comet offers advanced summarization tools, allowing users to break down complex webpages or videos into digestible insights. Additionally, the voice browsing feature enables hands-free interaction with the browser, enhancing multitasking efficiency.

Notable Quote:
"With voice browsing, it's like having a conversation that transitions seamlessly into action-oriented tasks." ([11:29])

Automation Features

Automation capabilities extend to creating custom routes in Google Maps and automating repetitive clicks, saving users significant time and effort.

Notable Quote:
"Automating clicks means doing in seconds what used to take minutes, enhancing productivity across the board." ([18:50])

Host's Insights and Future Outlook

The host reflects on how AI-native browsers like Perplexity Comet represent the future of internet usage. He emphasizes the shift from passive information consumption to active task execution facilitated by AI.

Notable Quote:
"Desktop browsing is becoming very multimodal, not just text and clicks, but talking and soon, perhaps, video interactions." ([12:35])

Additionally, the host anticipates a competitive "browser war" as major players like Google and OpenAI develop their own AI-integrated browsers, pushing innovation forward.

Conclusion: Host's Verdict and Expectations

Concluding the episode, the host expresses excitement about the potential of Perplexity Comet and commits to a 30-day trial to further explore its capabilities. He highlights the browser’s immediate benefits for email and calendar management, as well as its advanced features like voice browsing and summarization.

Notable Quote:
"I think I'm going to commit to trying to use it for the next 30 days and I'll be back with some deeper lessons." ([24:10])

The host also hints at future episodes, including potential side-by-side comparisons with competing AI browsers, underscoring the rapid evolution in this space.

Final Thoughts

Marketing Against The Grain offers a comprehensive look at Perplexity Comet, positioning it as a transformative tool for marketers. By integrating AI deeply into the browsing experience, it promises to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and provide actionable insights—all crucial for modern marketing strategies.

Key Takeaways:

AI Integration: Perplexity Comet exemplifies the next generation of AI-native browsers, embedding AI deeply into everyday tasks.
Productivity Boost: Features like email drafting, calendar management, and task automation significantly enhance productivity.
Future Trends: The evolution towards multimodal browsing experiences indicates a shift in how users will interact with the internet.
Competitive Landscape: Expect fierce competition as tech giants develop their own AI-powered browsers, driving further innovation.

For marketers looking to stay ahead of the curve, understanding and leveraging tools like Perplexity Comet will be essential in navigating the future of digital marketing and internet usage.

Transcript

Host (0:00)

Hey everybody, come with me. We're going to try the brand new Perplexity Comet browser. And it's very different than everybody thinks. It's really like an AI agent baked into your browser that can do so many things I didn't even realize was possible. And I think it's a good window into the future of how the Internet is going to work. I'm going to walk you through setting it up and all the ways to use it. Let's get to today's show. Here's a quick word from our sponsor. HubSpot helped Tumblr solve a big problem. They needed to move fast to produce trending content. But their marketing team was stuck waiting on engineers to code every single email campaign. Now they use HubSpot's customer platform to email real time trending content to millions of users in just seconds. The impact, three times more engagement and double the content creation. Want to move faster like Tumblr? Visit HubSpot.com all right, so we are going to get started. So all I have done up to this point is downloaded Comet browser. You can do this if you have an invite code or if you're a Perplexity Max subscriber. Those are the two folks who have access to right now. And now it says, unlock your personal assistant. Pick up where you left off. Bring your browser history, settings, bookmarks, passwords to the common experience. I don't want to do either of those. I'm going to do this later. Your profile name, I'm going to just give it my full name here and then I'm going to pick an icon. I really like this guy here. I like the device mode the best. Okay, do I want to set Comet as my default browser? I'm sorry, not yet, guys. Not yet. I don't know. I don't know if you're good enough to be my default browser. Help us improve the product. Sure, I will do that. So now we are here in the Comet browser. Looks very similar to Safari and Chrome and whatever web browser you might be using at the time. Now it says, try Comet Assistant. Master your inbox and calendar. Interesting. Delegate basics. Get the gist in seconds. Oh, summarize, automate clicks. Browse your voice. I'm not sure what that even means. Quickly find answers in your history and get insights in one click. And then it says reference any tab for precise answers. Not sure what all this actually means, but we're gonna figure this out together. It's gonna be great. So I've signed in to my Perplexity browser and what you'll see here is instead of a search blank like you might have Google, if you're using Chrome, I have a prompt blank for AI and for Perplexity. And so it's given me some prompts. And one of the big things you need to understand about Comet and this next wave of browsers is that they're calling themselves AI native browsers and they're AI built in and they integrate into everything you're doing. And so one of the things that's saying here is, what is my schedule for Monday? Let's try it. So just so everybody knows, anytime you're doing anything with Claude, with ChatGPT, with perplexity comment, and you want to use data that's in your Gmail, your Dropbox, whatever may have you, you're going to need to dive in settings and enable some connections. So I want to enable here. So all right, so now that I've signed in, I am giving Perplexity some access. I'm gonna say, hey, go nuts man. Cause I just wanna test this stuff out. I wanna do the same thing for Google Drive, selecting all there. I don't need Dropbox, WhatsApp. That's interesting. I might do that later. That could be cool. So now I have all this set up. So now I should be able to do some cool things. So one of the things I can do now is try Common Assistant. Let's see what I can do. Can you help me prep for my first meeting tomorrow morning? That's all I said. A very basic prompt. When we're using a new product like this, I want to intentionally be basic. All right, see, so it's got some events here, it's got a HubSpot helps planning thing, which is charity initiatives. And it gives me some prep tips and everything to cover. It's fine. Nothing too crazy here. Fine. Can you help me respond to some of the most important emails I haven't yet answered? It's finding like some notification emails it wants me to respond to, those are not right. Prioritize emails by sender and urgency. This is fine. What I will say about this. It's very fast. So far its integration with my work products have been very, very fast, which I certainly like. Let's go back here to comment. It says master your calendar in your inbox. That's clearly a use case. It seems fine. It seems like I'm not coming with like the best use cases probably right now let's see what else we should delegate basics. What does this mean? Put together a grocery cart on Instacart for me from Walmart. I would like butter chicken. Okay, so this is would be similar to like OpenAI's operator. So let's see if I can give it a marketing task. Can you go and search ramp.com shout out to Eric and Kareem and our friends at ramp. Can you research ramp.com and give me a breakdown of three two, five one ways they could improve their marketing by browsing their website. And can you then put those recommendations together in an email to their co founders, see what it does? So it's going and it's doing some research on Ramp. Highlight direct customer outcomes with video and social proof. Make AI an automation tangible with product demos. They do a lot of this stuff. Address onboarding, support and trust concerns up front. Personalize for segments and use dynamic content. Here is a draft. So they got Eric and Kareem right? Eric and Kareem are the co founders of Ramp. Shout out to those guys and it's a solid email and you can now rewrite or export. And when I say export PDF markdown doc I can share this with somebody else to review. That's all pretty cool. Can you draft this in Gmail for me? Can you? I think one of the big wins about Perplexity Comment that is really important to know is that a lot of integrations with these AI tools are kind of read only. Like they can go get information and give it to you, but Perplexity Comment can go get it and do it for you. So here's what's interesting. I did this intentionally. I did not tell Perplexity what Eric and Kareem's emails were. Right. It's pretty sweet, right? If I've got a company I could do the research. I can get a first draft of an email written. I can then go and review that email and I get that email off to whoever I basically decide is the right fit at the company. Pretty interesting. And it's a creating a draft and email incorporating the marketing recommendations. So it did all of this and then it said emailing done, emailing rejected. So we don't actually need to send this email. But it's pretty cool that it could basically do all of this and send it through your in this case Gmail because that's where we're using all this early products like this. I think it really does depend on what tools you use for your business. Like the Google tools are just easier for a lot of these companies to integrate with and so that's why Google is an option here and so that's pretty sweet. That's a pretty cool sales use case that I hadn't quite considered yet. So that was kind of showing the web browsing and the emailing feature, which is pretty cool. Get the gist in seconds. What the heck does this mean? Oh, so it has a summarize feature. Oh, I'm going to especially like this for YouTube. So you know YouTube, you know, go to marketing against the grain baby, because we love marketing against the grain. Hit like and subscribe if you haven't. And so let's go, let's go to Kieran's vibe coding. Oh, you're vibing Kieran. What happens here is that it's summarizing the current web page. One of the things I love most about Grok AI for example is that it does the summarization and context around an individual post on X slash formally Twitter. And so what they've done with perplexity is bring this feature to any webpage which is pretty awesome. So you could imagine if you were a marketer doing customer research, a salesperson doing prospect research, this summarization could be very valuable in putting the final end product together. So basically it takes Kieran's video and breaks it down and the video outlines a process where marketers can quickly create minimum viable products and code for power experiences to attract convert their ideal customer profile. And like that's pretty sweet. Let's talk AI strategy. Because having the tools is one thing, but knowing how to use them together, that's the game changer. The top players have nailed this and we've mapped it out for you in a no fluff guide featuring 40 plus AI tools and structured a process to build your own AI toolkit. Grab the guide and transform how you use AI. The link is in the description below. Now let's get back to today's show. So that is summarize. What are the other stuff's up here? This is like favoriting secure connection getting me the link. I think this is just showing me the media I have available to play. So I think. Oh yeah, so that's interesting. So, so I can be on any tab but just come here and it'll show me the different media I have open. I can pick and I can choose to play it, I can choose to cast it. It's actually a pretty sweet just general browser feature that they're doing there which is pretty cool. Now we've talked summary, what happens here? Oh this is the voice assistant. It's once my microphone. So let's see. All right. Yes, I had some questions about this video. I'm looking at this video from Kieran about building web tools for businesses. I'm a landscaping company in Columbus, Ohio, called Leaves of Grass, and I want to attract more local clients to my business. Could you tell me how to use the advice in this video for my business?