Can the Web Browser Be the Disruptor Yet Again?
Alex Heath
There are a number of interesting tidbits from Heath's sit down with Aravind Srinivas – unsurprising, as he tends to say provocative things quite often – but his comments as to why Perplexity feels the need to make a web browser, stand out:
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. You can deep link to them, but for example, with Uber, I cannot go and check prices of different Uber rides and provide you Comfort if there's not much of a price difference. I cannot compare prices between Uber and Lyft to get the best ride. I cannot compare the wait times between Uber Eats and DoorDash to get whatever is optimal.
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. That's why we're building a browser. The browser is the best place to take action for people. We want to move to a different front-end.
The agentic/browser relationship was the my immediate reaction upon using ChatGPT's Operator a few months back. As I wrote at the time:
To me, the most interesting aspect of OpenAI's new 'Operator' product – their first real agent – is not what it can do, but how it does it. Unlike the early iterations of similar products from Anthropic and Google, 'Operator' doesn't take over your computer, it outsources the work you want to do to OpenAI's computer in the cloud. And like so many of us these days, that computer really is just using one app: the web browser.
It's both clever and at the same time obvious. Why would you want to do this on your own machine, thus tying it up while you're trying to do something else – isn't that the point of an agent, freeing you up to do other things? But it's also a bit weird: watching a bot perform a task you've asked of it on some remote computer from afar. It's all a bit Kabuki theater. And that quickly made me realize another obvious element of all this: OpenAI needs to make their own web browser.
The fact that OpenAI clearly built some sort of custom version of Chrome to make Operator work just underscored the point that all of the AI companies hoping to compete probably shouldn't be relying on software operated by Google, which, of course, is also competing in this space. And it's perhaps the one actually compelling argument for why they should be made to spin-off Chrome. Not because of the past with Google Search share, but because of the future with AI. At the very least, this situation probably needs to be monitored closely given Chrome's market share. If Gemini is baked right into Chrome and deeply integrated...
Anyway, neither OpenAI nor Perplexity is going to buy Chrome. Even if they could – and could afford it – it would be more for distribution purposes than for their their agentic needs. The both need to build browsers from the ground up (perhaps using Chromium to ensure compatibility) designed to operate AI-first. And clearly Perplexity is close to launching that, with Comet due next month.
Srinivas' point around using the browser as a de-facto operating system is a good one. It's essentially what broke the dominance of the last great monopolistic OS back in the day, Windows.1 Can history sort of repeat itself here, with the browser once again helping to displace the incumbents?
It will be a tall task for Perplexity, and certainly OpenAI has an easier inroads given how many users ChatGPT currently has. But if Comet is compelling enough, Perplexity have a shot to do something here.2
And it sounds like Srinivas' doesn't plan to stop there if that were to work:
There's more beyond that, which is to build Windows, Mac, Android, or iOS. A browser is very restricted and containerized. The OS is the ultimate game.
Perplexity always seems to want to be doing everything, boiling that ocean. Speaking of...
One more thing: when asked about the other multi-tens-of-billions-of-dollars deal Perplexity has said it wants to do – buying TikTok – an update:
I haven't given up on it, but I would say it's not like I had the best shot. I think everybody knew that. I don't think that [funding] is the issue. There were enough backers who wanted to back me.
What we heard from the ByteDance people was not a funding-related issue, either. It's more the willingness to keep controlling the algorithm. I think they want to retain ownership and control of it, and they believe nobody else can do it as well as they can. The app that runs in America and Europe is also heavily tied together. It's very difficult to decouple that. Tariffs are going to control everything, including TikTok.
Well, it's good to hear that interested bidders have at least spoken to ByteDance at this point – that wasn't always the case! And yeah, the ownership stake retention issue will undoubtedly remain the biggest hurdle – assuming the Chinese tariff situation resolves at some point...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 It's also interesting to hear Srinivas call out Microsoft here for baking Copilot right into Windows, which is, of course, exactly what got them in trouble with regard to Internet Explorer back in the day! Then again, Windows is not what Windows once was – again, thanks to... the browser!
2 You know what wouldn't make for such a compelling product? Another vision Srinivas gave around Comet, this time in a podcast with TBPN (the artists formerly known as the Technology Brothers). While he framed the desire to build a browser around some similar concepts, he also highlighted the ability to better serve you ads by building out deep profiles on your browsing habits. Look, we get it, money needs to be made. But that vision is probably not going to sell billions of people to jump over to use your browser...