Perplexity handled a total of 780 million queries last month alone, the company’s CEO Aravind Srinivas revealed on stage at Bloomberg’s Tech Summit. Srinivas highlighted that this figure represents over 20% month-over-month growth, indicating strong momentum for the AI-driven search platform.
“If we sustain this growth trajectory, we’ll be processing around a billion queries every week in just a year,” Srinivas said. He added context by noting the exponential rise from humble beginnings—Perplexity handled only about 3,000 queries on its debut day in 2022. Today, the AI search engine regularly processes 30 million queries per day.
Srinivas emphasized that the company’s growth is likely to accelerate further with the launch of its new web browser, Comet. Perplexity intends Comet not to be simply another web browsing tool, but rather what Srinivas calls a “cognitive operating system.”
The CEO explained that Comet’s integration promises limitless user engagement by embedding Perplexity’s AI directly into everyday browsing tasks. Everything—whether done through the search bar, new tabs, or sidebar—becomes an additional query opportunity for the platform. According to Srinivas, the allure of Comet is that it will attract users disenchanted with existing legacy browsers, particularly Chrome.
He also outlined a broader vision for Perplexity and its browser. Rather than merely delivering answers through a series of searches, Srinivas said Comet would empower AI to directly perform user actions, condensing an entire browsing session into a single action-oriented AI prompt. This vision necessitates “a hybridization of client-side and server-side computing,” requiring the entire browsing concept to be rethought from the ground up.
“Comet will be your constant, reliable companion, proactively assisting with tasks and decisions, at work and in life,” Srinivas elaborated. “Traditionally, the web was something we browsed occasionally, but now people increasingly live online. To deliver truly proactive and personalized assistance, AI needs seamless integration—this is precisely why we see a necessity for a fundamental shift in how we conceive and build browsers.”
Although Srinivas didn’t provide a precise launch date, he previously hinted on social media that Comet’s public release would occur within three to five weeks. Additional features, such as built-in tools to natively handle virtual meeting recordings, transcriptions, and searchability, are expected shortly after its initial release.
Notably, Srinivas has previously acknowledged plans to leverage Comet for premium advertising, tracking user activity beyond Perplexity’s standalone app environment—a model similar to Google’s early strategy that facilitated its dominance in digital advertising.
