For a limited time, PayPal is giving its users — including Venmo users — early access to Comet, Perplexity’s new AI-powered web browser, as well as a free year of Perplexity Pro. The move folds a buzzy AI product into two of the most popular finance apps in the U.S., turning a hot invite into a mainstream perk, and offering hints at how payment platforms plan to plug directly into the next wave of AI-driven browsing and search.
What the offer includes
2 The offer comes with: a Comet invite and 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro (competition) (normally $200 a year) Access is surfaced within the PayPal and Venmo apps and each PayPal account gets one invite. Current Perplexity Pro subscribers are not eligible.
Comet pairs a traditional browser experience with a built-in AI assistant that provides summaries of search results, price comparisons and maintains context across tabs. It also embraces “agentic commerce,” where the assistant is able to help you find things, book travel or buy tickets — and then check out with PayPal and Venmo with a few taps. Early access had previously been granted to Perplexity’s highest-end Max plan at $200/month, so this PayPal route is an interesting shortcut.
Why this partnership matters
Distribution is the headline. PayPal has hundreds of millions of active accounts around the world, company disclosures say, and tens of millions of U.S. users use Venmo. That scale, according to Mr. Coburn, can condense an AI product’s go-to-market cycle from months to days. With a single in-app placement, Comet moved from a waitlist curiosity to mass-consumer trial — just the kind of push AI upstarts need as the category swells with new agents and browsers.
There’s also a flywheel at play for PayPal. By hanging AI goodies in front of users’ noses, the company can push logins, as well as showcase its new subscriptions hub, which centrally hosts recurring charges across services. PayPal is bundling the hub with another promotion in which it pays customers $50 when they link and pay three or more subscriptions through its platform — an incentive aimed at boosting stickiness and payment volume.
The arms race for AI browsers
Browsers with AI capabilities are competing to break free from Chrome’s stronghold on usage on the desktop. Chrome has about two-thirds of global share by StatCounter’s estimates, a substantial moat against any contender. The category is shifting, however: Arc, Opera (with Aria), Brave (with Leo) and Microsoft’s Edge (with Copilot) are all baking assistants into rudimentary browsing. Perplexity’s angle is to fold “search” and “browse” into one conversational layer, and to connect that layer to actions — comparison shopping, planning a series of different purchases, checking out — without all the context-switching in between.
If Comet demonstrates that an AI-first interface can save even small amounts of time on a per-task basis that adds up to something meaningful, single-digit percentage-point gains in user efficiency may capture quite a high percentage of daily browsing sessions. That’s the prize of strategy: to be the origin of intent, and the person who mediates what happens next.
How to claim through PayPal and Venmo
Open up the PayPal or Venmo app and search for the Comet and Perplexity Pro offer card. Follow the prompts and redeem a 12-month Pro trial and Comet invitation. That’s limited to one invite per PayPal account, and current Perplexity Pro members are not eligible. Once activated, Perplexity directs you to download and install the Comet browser. It is currently a U.S.-only roll out with plans for a wider release.
What to watch next
Key metrics will be conversion and retention: how many PayPal and Venmo users try Comet, and how many keep Perplexity Pro after the year. On PayPal’s front expect attention on subscription hub adoption, repeat app engagement, and if the $50 incentive gets any measurable subscription management behavior flowing into its tent.
Consumers should review auto-renew settings and understand what data passes where: PayPal and Venmo deal with payments, while Perplexity and Comet manage browsing and assistant interactions. Each company publishes policies on how data is retained and model training — worth a read before you flip on always-on AI features.
The broader trend is evident: payments and AI are converging at the browser. With an invite-only AI experience coupled with its everyday checkout rails, PayPal and Perplexity are experimenting with a potent distribution formula — one that could someday make the browser not just where the internet starts but where purchases are completed.
