AI Browser Will Track Every Single Thing You Do, CEO Reveals

Let's face it: internet ads are a fixture of life in the 21st century. Since 2002, Google has been rolling out features designed to monetize our browsing habits and feed our data to marketing companies hellbent on optimizing their advertising schemes.

Now, AI company Perplexity wants to use AI to even further optimize the way it sucks up your data to sell at a profit.

As spotted by TechCrunch, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said on a YouTube podcast earlier this week that his company is working on an AI browser with the goal of tracking users harder than any web browser has ever tracked before.

"Once you understand the user deeply enough, the user can probably trust you if you show them relevant sponsored content, as long as it's super personalized and hyper-optimized to that user," Srinivas said of Perplexity's AI browser efforts. "If any of the AI companies could do that, I think that could be a thing where brands could pay a lot more money to advertise there."

"We wanna get data, even outside the app to better understand you," Srinivas schemed, referring to tracking non-user data, as companies like Facebook and Google have been caught doing (and definitely still are, by the way.) "What are the things you’re buying, which hotels are you going [to], which restaurants are you going to, what are you spending time browsing, tells us so much more about you."

Perplexity's AI browser is named Comet, first teased by the company back in February. As a relatively young piece of software, it's not yet clear what kind of surveillance Perplexity's browser is capable of, but its privacy policy currently includes disclosing personal information to advertisers, business partners, and other third parties.

The company emphatically notes that it does not "sell" or "share" personal information "as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act" — an oddly specific caveat. "Nor have we done so in the preceding 12 months." (It would be difficult to imagine how Comet is supposed to turn a profit on hyper-personal ad surveillance unless this line gets an update.)

Privacy issues aside, Comet faces an uphill battle as it enters a turbulent market.

The dominant player, Google — arguably the godfather of data monetization — has been recently declared a monopoly by a federal judge, and Perplexity isn't alone in trying to box Google out.

Sam Altman's OpenAI is throwing its hat in the ring in the event that Google is forced to relinquish Chrome, in a move could provide OpenAI with an unfathomable amount of data to train its AI models and boost its own AI browser — not to mention provide a huge revenue stream as Altman tries to take the company private.

Other, smaller players in the game include the upcoming Dia by The Browser Company, and Wavebox, which are part of a growing wave of startups pushing AI-powered alternatives to the now slop-cluttered browsers we used to know and love.

With all the bluster about "relevant sponsored content" and "hyper-optimized ads," the end game is clear: all these companies believe that with new AI tools, they'll be able to scrutinize every single thing you do in your browser — and monetize it like never before.

More on surveillance: Alarm App Demands You Watch Advertisement to Hit "Snooze" Button

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