Key Takeaways
- Perplexity Comet launched on desktop in July 2025 and became free globally on October 2, 2025. It reached Android in November 2025 and iOS in March 2026.
- ChatGPT Atlas launched for macOS on October 21, 2025. Windows, iOS, and Android versions are still pending as of mid-2026. Agent Mode requires a ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) or Pro ($200/month) subscription.
- Arc Browser entered maintenance mode in May 2025. The Browser Company stopped adding new features and is now focused entirely on its successor, Dia. Arc still works but will not receive new AI capabilities.
- Comet is the most accessible of the three: the browser is free to download, and basic AI search works without a paid plan. The Pro tier ($20/month) unlocks extended assistant actions.
- Atlas Agent Mode is the most ambitious feature in this category but is also the least reliable. Multiple reviewers documented it failing to complete simple tasks like booking a restaurant or adding items to a cart.
- Arc Max AI features (5-Second Previews, Ask on Page, Tidy Tab Titles) remain free for existing Arc users, but these features are lighter than what Comet or Atlas offer. No new Arc Max features will ship after May 2025.
- For pure research tasks, Comet’s source-cited answer engine has the clearest advantage. For task automation inside a browser, Atlas has the concept right but needs more reliability work before replacing a general-purpose browser.
- All three browsers are Chromium-based, so existing Chrome extensions work across each of them.
Three browsers are competing to define what “AI-powered browsing” actually means in practice. Perplexity Comet treats your browser like a research assistant with citations. ChatGPT Atlas wants to be the agent that handles your to-do list across the web. Arc, once the darling of power users, has frozen its AI roadmap and handed the baton to Dia.
This comparison covers what each browser does now, not what they plan to do. Where features are missing, broken, or platform-restricted, that is noted clearly. If you are deciding which browser to use for AI-assisted work in 2025 and 2026, this breakdown is for you.
The primary keyword here, Perplexity Comet vs ChatGPT Atlas, reflects the real battle. Arc is included because many users currently on Arc are deciding whether to migrate to Comet or Atlas as their next step.
Quick Comparison: Comet vs Atlas vs Arc
| Feature | Perplexity Comet | ChatGPT Atlas | Arc Browser |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch date | July 9, 2025 | October 21, 2025 | 2022 (frozen May 2025) |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS | macOS only (mid-2026) | macOS, Windows, iOS |
| AI engine | Perplexity AI (source-cited) | ChatGPT (GPT-4o) | Mix of Claude, OpenAI (Arc Max) |
| Free tier | Yes, 5 Pro Searches/day | Yes, basic features only | Yes, Arc Max is free |
| Paid tier | $20/month (Pro), $200/month (Max) | $20/month (Plus), $200/month (Pro) | Free (no new paid AI plans) |
| Agent / task mode | Yes, Comet Assistant | Yes, Agent Mode (paid) | Limited (no new development) |
| Source citations | Yes, built-in | No, inline citations not standard | No |
| Active development | Yes | Yes | No (maintenance only) |
| Built-in ad blocker | Yes (Android) | No | Yes |
| Base engine | Chromium | Chromium | Chromium |
What is Perplexity Comet?
Perplexity Comet is a Chromium-based web browser built by Perplexity AI. It launched on Windows and macOS on July 9, 2025, initially limited to Perplexity Max subscribers ($200/month). On October 2, 2025, Perplexity opened the browser to everyone for free. The Android version shipped November 20, 2025, and the iOS version followed March 18, 2026.
The core idea is that every browsing session has a persistent AI layer. Instead of opening a separate tab to search something, you highlight text, ask a question in the sidebar, or give Comet a task to complete across multiple sites. Search results come back with citations by default, the same way Perplexity’s standalone search engine works.
Comet’s agentic features sit inside what Perplexity calls the Comet Assistant. It can control your tabs, draft emails, fill out forms, schedule meetings, book reservations, extract data into spreadsheets, and compare product pricing across multiple retailers. For heavier automation, Perplexity introduced Background Assistants: tasks that run asynchronously while you do other things, similar in concept to how you might delegate a task to a human assistant and come back to it later.
The pricing structure is layered: the browser itself is free, basic search works with 5 Pro Searches per day at no cost, the full Perplexity Pro plan costs $20/month, and Comet Plus (access to premium publisher content) costs an additional $5/month as an add-on. The $200/month Max plan bundles everything including the most advanced agentic Computer feature.
What is ChatGPT Atlas?
ChatGPT Atlas is OpenAI’s Chromium-based browser, announced and launched for macOS on October 21, 2025. It integrates ChatGPT directly into the browser’s UI through a persistent sidebar and a set of overlay tools. At the time of writing, Atlas remains macOS-only; Windows, iOS, and Android versions have been announced but not shipped.
The browser is organized around three capabilities: Chat, Memory, and Agent. The Chat sidebar lets you ask questions about whatever page you are on. Browser Memory, which is optional, lets Atlas remember context from sites you visit, so you can later ask things like “summarize the job listings I looked at last week.” Agent Mode lets ChatGPT take direct actions inside the browser: clicking links, filling forms, navigating between sites, and completing multi-step tasks on your behalf.
Atlas does not have its own separate subscription. It uses your existing OpenAI account. Free ChatGPT users can access basic browsing and sidebar chat. Agent Mode, Browser Memory with extended context, and more complex task completion require a ChatGPT Plus subscription at $20/month, or ChatGPT Pro at $200/month for the highest usage limits. There is also a Cursor Chat overlay feature that lets you highlight text anywhere and ask ChatGPT to rewrite, translate, or explain it inline, without switching context.
Privacy reviews from The Washington Post and NPR raised concerns about the volume of data Atlas collects to power its Memory and Agent features. By default, OpenAI does not use browsing content for model training, but opting into the memory features significantly expands what the browser records.
What is Arc Browser?
Arc, built by The Browser Company, launched in 2022 and built a passionate following for its unconventional design: a vertical sidebar for tabs, Spaces for organizing different contexts, and visual customization tools called Boosts. Its AI layer, called Arc Max, shipped in 2023 and included features like 5-Second Previews (hover over a link while holding Shift for an AI summary), Ask on Page (ask questions about the current page), Tidy Tab Titles (AI-shortened tab names), and Tidy Downloads (AI-renamed downloaded files).
In May 2025, The Browser Company announced Arc was entering maintenance mode. No new features will be added. The company is now building Dia, a separate AI-first browser that inherits Arc’s best design choices while stripping out the complexity that limited mainstream adoption. As of mid-2026, Dia is in beta. Arc remains usable and receives security patches, but its AI roadmap is frozen.
Arc Max features are still free for existing users. They rely on a mix of Claude and OpenAI models. However, they are lightweight compared to what Comet and Atlas offer: there is no agentic task completion, no form filling, no multi-site automation, and no persistent memory. Arc Max was designed for passive AI assistance during browsing, not active task execution.
Feature-by-Feature Breakdown
AI Search and Research
Comet has a clear edge here. Because it is built directly on top of Perplexity’s search engine, every query returns a structured answer with numbered source citations. You can ask a complex research question, get a synthesized answer, and immediately see which sources were used. This is genuinely useful for fact-checking and academic-style research. The search layer is not a chatbot bolt-on; it is the product’s foundation.
Atlas can answer questions about whatever page you are currently on, and it can use ChatGPT’s web browsing capability to fetch information. However, it does not produce the same citation-first format Comet does. Answers feel more like ChatGPT responses with references sometimes included, rather than structured research outputs.
Arc’s Ask on Page feature answers questions about the current page using AI, but it does not search the web the way Comet or Atlas do. It reads the page you are on and responds to your question about that specific content. Useful, but a much narrower capability.
Agentic Task Completion
Both Comet and Atlas claim agentic capabilities, but the execution differs significantly.
Comet’s Assistant can fill out forms, book reservations, compare product prices across multiple sites, and extract data. In practice, early testers report it handles predictable, well-structured tasks (form fills, basic bookings) better than ambiguous multi-site tasks. The Background Assistants feature, which runs tasks asynchronously, is one of the more genuinely useful additions in this space: you describe a task, walk away, and come back to a completed result.
Atlas Agent Mode has the ambition right but the reliability wrong. Reviews from Cybernews and The Kara Report document it taking 10 minutes to add three items to a cart, and failing to complete restaurant bookings. The agent can research topics, find information across sites, and draft summaries well. Where it struggles is completing real transactional tasks with consistent reliability. OpenAI is clearly iterating on this; the November 2025 update added vertical tabs and improved overall UI, and tab groups arrived in January 2026. But Agent Mode still feels like a beta feature being refined in public.
Arc offers no meaningful agentic features. Arc Max does not perform tasks on your behalf.
Memory and Context
Atlas’s Browser Memory is one of its most distinguishing features when it works correctly. It can remember pages you visited, job listings you read, products you looked at, and surface that context in future queries. This makes it feel genuinely personalized over time. The tradeoff is that it requires Atlas to collect and store more browsing data than a standard browser, which is what prompted the privacy coverage.
Comet does not have an equivalent persistent memory system across sessions, though its background assistant can aggregate and reference information across a single task session.
Arc has no memory features.
Platform Availability
Comet is available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. This is a practical advantage for anyone not exclusively on Apple hardware. Comet is the only one of the three that works fully across all major platforms as of mid-2026.
Atlas is macOS only. Windows users cannot use it. There is no reliable timeline for when Windows support will arrive. This is a significant limitation that disqualifies Atlas for many users outright.
Arc is available on macOS, Windows, and iOS. However, since Arc is frozen, choosing it today means choosing a browser that will not improve. It is suitable for users who value Arc’s existing design and just need a capable daily browser.
Privacy
Comet’s privacy policy follows Perplexity’s standard terms. The browser can access browsing activity to power its AI features, though Perplexity states it does not sell this data. The Android version includes a built-in ad blocker.
Atlas raised the most privacy questions of the three. To support Agent Mode and Browser Memory, it needs to observe and record more of your browsing than a standard browser. OpenAI says it does not use this data for training by default, but researchers and privacy writers have flagged the expanded attack surface for prompt injection, where a malicious webpage tries to manipulate the agent into performing unintended actions.
Arc’s privacy posture is well-established from years of public scrutiny. Its AI features (Arc Max) send page content to external AI providers to answer queries, but the browser does not have the same memory or agent data collection that Comet and Atlas require.
Pricing Side-by-Side
| Plan | Perplexity Comet | ChatGPT Atlas | Arc Browser |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Browser free, 5 Pro Searches/day | Browser free, basic chat only | Fully free including Arc Max |
| Mid tier | $20/month (Perplexity Pro) | $20/month (ChatGPT Plus) | Not applicable |
| Top tier | $200/month (Perplexity Max) | $200/month (ChatGPT Pro) | Not applicable |
| Add-ons | Comet Plus: $5/month extra | None separate | None |
If you already pay for ChatGPT Plus, Atlas adds no new cost. If you already pay for Perplexity Pro, Comet adds no new cost. The browsers themselves are free downloads layered on top of existing subscription structures.
Design and Everyday Use
Comet is designed around a sidebar and persistent AI layer. The browsing experience is clean and recognizable: it looks like a modern Chromium browser with an AI panel on the side. Users moving from Chrome will find the transition smooth.
Atlas is similarly sidebar-centric, with the Cursor Chat overlay as a standout UX detail. The ability to highlight text anywhere and invoke ChatGPT inline feels natural once you are used to it. The browser’s interface is minimal, which some users find too sparse. The macOS-only limitation makes the design discussion somewhat academic for Windows users.
Arc’s design is still one of the most thoughtful in any browser on any platform. Its vertical tab sidebar, Spaces, and Boosts give power users a significantly more organized browsing experience than Chrome or Safari. The tradeoff is a steeper learning curve. Because Arc is frozen, new users should weigh whether they want to invest in learning a browser that will not evolve.
Who Should Use Which?
Use Perplexity Comet if:
- You do a lot of research and want source-cited answers built into your browser by default.
- You need cross-platform support, including Windows and Android.
- You already use Perplexity Pro and want to get more value from that subscription.
- You want agentic features (form fills, bookings, data extraction) without being locked into the Apple ecosystem.
- You want a browser that is actively improving with new AI features.
Use ChatGPT Atlas if:
- You are on macOS and already pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro.
- You want persistent browser memory that remembers context across sessions.
- You use ChatGPT heavily for writing, editing, and summarizing, and want that capability on every webpage.
- You are comfortable with an early-stage product and want to be on OpenAI’s AI browser roadmap from the start.
Stick with Arc Browser if:
- You love Arc’s tab sidebar, Spaces, and overall organization system and are not ready to switch.
- You want an AI-assisted browser without paying for a subscription (Arc Max is still free).
- You are waiting for Dia to mature before committing to a new AI browser.
- You are on macOS or Windows and do not need advanced agentic capabilities.
Verdict: Which AI Browser Wins in 2025?
For most people comparing these three, the real choice is between Comet and Atlas. Arc is a third option only for existing users or those who want to hold their position until Dia is ready.
Comet is currently the stronger product for a wider range of users. It is free, works on every major platform, and delivers on its core promise: AI-powered browsing with real source citations. Its agentic features are more reliable than Atlas’s for routine tasks, and it does not require an Apple device to use. If you are new to AI browsers and want to try one today, Comet is the least-friction option.
Atlas has the most ambitious vision: a browser that knows your history, acts on your behalf, and integrates ChatGPT into every moment of your browsing session. The Browser Memory feature is genuinely ahead of anything Comet currently offers. The problem is reliability and platform lock-in. Agent Mode fails too often on transactional tasks, and macOS-only availability cuts out a large portion of potential users. Atlas is worth revisiting when Windows support arrives and Agent Mode’s success rate improves.
Arc remains a great browser to use right now, but not one to switch to. If you are not already an Arc user, this is not the moment to start. If you are an existing Arc user, Comet is the most logical next move: it is platform-compatible, free, and the most mature AI browser currently shipping.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Perplexity Comet completely free?
The Comet browser itself is free to download and use on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. The free tier includes 5 Pro Searches per day. For unlimited AI searches and extended assistant actions, the Perplexity Pro subscription costs $20/month. The $200/month Max plan includes the most advanced agentic Computer features. Perplexity Comet pricing
Is ChatGPT Atlas available on Windows?
Not yet as of mid-2026. ChatGPT Atlas launched for macOS on October 21, 2025. OpenAI has said Windows, iOS, and Android versions are planned, but no release date has been confirmed. This is one of Atlas’s biggest current limitations.
What happened to Arc Browser’s AI features?
Arc’s AI layer, called Arc Max, still works for existing users. However, The Browser Company stopped adding new features to Arc in May 2025 and is now building Dia, a new AI-first browser. Arc will receive security patches but no new capabilities. Arc Max features include 5-Second Previews, Ask on Page, Tidy Tab Titles, and Tidy Downloads, all free for existing users.
Which AI browser is best for research?
Perplexity Comet is the strongest option for research. Its search engine returns answers with numbered source citations by default, making it easy to verify claims and follow up on sources. Atlas can answer research questions through ChatGPT but does not provide the same structured citation output. Arc does not have comparable research search features.
Can ChatGPT Atlas really book things and complete tasks for you?
Technically yes, but reliability is inconsistent. Agent Mode can research, summarize, and navigate multiple sites. However, multiple reviewers documented failures on simple tasks like adding items to a cart or booking a restaurant. OpenAI is actively improving the feature, but as of late 2025 and early 2026, Agent Mode works better for information gathering than for completing real transactions.
What is the difference between Perplexity Comet and regular Perplexity search?
Perplexity’s regular search is a standalone web app you open in any browser. Comet is a full Chromium browser that brings that same AI search engine into your entire browsing experience: sidebars, highlights, tab management, and agentic task completion. Comet also adds the Background Assistants feature, which lets you queue tasks and let AI complete them while you do other things. Regular Perplexity search does not have tab control or form-filling capabilities.
Does ChatGPT Atlas collect my browsing data?
Atlas collects more browsing data than a standard browser to power its Memory and Agent features. By default, OpenAI does not use this data to train its models. Users who opt into Browser Memory enable storage of browsing context. Privacy researchers, including coverage from The Washington Post, have flagged prompt injection risks from malicious sites trying to manipulate the agent. Users concerned about privacy should review the Atlas data controls before enabling memory features.
Should I switch from Chrome to an AI browser?
It depends on what you need. If you already pay for Perplexity Pro or ChatGPT Plus, switching to their respective browser costs nothing extra and gives you meaningfully better AI integration. If you do not use either subscription and browse casually, Chrome remains faster and more stable for now. AI browsers are still maturing, and switching carries some friction. For power researchers or people who do heavy web-based task work, the switch is worth trying.
Are AI browsers safe to use?
All three browsers in this comparison are Chromium-based, which means they inherit Chrome’s security architecture. The main new risk surface is the AI agent layer: agentic browsers that can fill forms, click links, and remember browsing history create new opportunities for prompt injection attacks, where malicious webpage content tries to trick the agent into doing something unintended. This is a known research area; Perplexity and OpenAI are both working on defenses. For sensitive tasks involving banking or personal accounts, using the AI agent features cautiously is advisable until the category matures.
What is Dia Browser and how does it relate to Arc?
Dia is the next-generation browser from The Browser Company, the team that built Arc. It was announced alongside Arc’s move to maintenance mode in May 2025 and launched in beta later that year. Dia is designed to be simpler than Arc while offering deeper AI integration. It is inheriting Arc’s best design features (vertical tabs, sidebar) without the complexity that limited Arc’s mainstream adoption. If you are an Arc user looking ahead, Dia is the intended successor.
