Copilot, Comet, and Dia: Who’s Winning the AI Browser Race?

The internet is buzzing with talk of AI-powered browsers, promising to revolutionise how we interact with the web. Promotional videos paint an enticing picture of a seamless, intelligent browsing experience where your browser anticipates your needs and handles tasks effortlessly. But beyond the flashy demos, what’s the reality? Are these new AI browsers truly revolutionary, or just a fresh coat of paint, potentially ushering in an era where we pay for what used to be free, all while our data continues to fuel the machine?

Let’s cut through the noise to examine three prominent players: Microsoft Edge’s Copilot Mode, Perplexity’s Comet, and The Browser Company’s Dia. Let’s see who’s actually delivering on the AI dream and who’s still stuck in the marketing department.

Microsoft Edge’s Copilot Mode: The Glamour vs. The Guts

Microsoft’s promotional videos for Copilot Mode in Edge are undeniably fun to watch. With catchy tunes like The Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now,” they make the future of browsing look incredibly appealing. Who wouldn’t want a browser that books paddleboat or flights with a simple voice command?

In reality, none of those agentic browsing features currently work. Copilot cannot book your next vacation or flight. It’s a stark reminder that what looks great in a controlled demo isn’t always ready for prime time.

What Edge’s Copilot Mode can do right now is fairly limited. It will summarise all your open tabs, which is pretty useless if you have dozens open. A more practical approach would be the ability to select specific tabs for summarisation — something its competitors handle better. The “Chat in a page” feature, while useful for summarising articles or videos and asking follow-up questions, isn’t new; it’s essentially the old sidebar chat moved to the address bar. And that, unfortunately, is the extent of Edge’s so-called “revolutionary” Copilot Mode. The gap between marketing fantasy and actual functionality is wide.

Perplexity Comet: A Chrome Clone with an AI Brain (and a Price Tag)

Perplexity Comet feels very much like Google Chrome with a Perplexity AI layer on top. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Tab groups, media controls, and settings work as you’d expect from a Chromium-based browser. The key difference is deep AI integration: the new tab page is a Perplexity homepage with widgets, voice dictation sits front and center in the address bar, and dedicated Assistant and Voice Mode sidebars are always accessible. There’s even a handy “summarise this page” button.

Everything you type and search in Comet goes through Perplexity’s AI. Whether that’s a plus or a minus depends on your preference. Google still reigns supreme for quick, glanceable information, especially with its Knowledge Panels. Perplexity is trying to catch up by improving previews, like movie info cards but risks becoming just another Google clone.

Where Comet truly shines is its Assistant sidebar. It’s incredibly convenient, arguably even more so than having ChatGPT or another AI in a separate tab. Since the assistant has context of your open tabs, it can provide relevant answers without needing to copy-paste anything. This is especially valuable for summarising long articles, which many AI models mishandle when they lack context.

Comet also supports agentic browsing. It’s far from perfect, but it works reasonably well and honestly, better than ChatGPT’s own agent. It can handle simple tasks like summarising emails or looking up tweets. However, don’t believe every viral video on Twitter that shows it booking vacations or trading stocks. I asked it to pull up my Vietnam flights, it only found two out of five. When I asked specifically about one, it confidently gave the wrong answer. That kind of confident error is exactly why I remain cautious.

A small but frustrating issue: Comet saves “useless” data to memory without any alert, unlike ChatGPT, which notifies you. This invisible accumulation can skew future results and responses.

The Browser Company’s Dia: Design First, AI a Distant Second?

Now we come to Dia by The Browser Company. These folks are design geniuses. Their earlier product, Arc, was a joy to use and included decent AI integration. Unfortunately, they seem to have largely abandoned Arc’s standout features — like creative tab organisation and the Spaces interface in favor of pivoting to Dia.

Dia is undoubtedly beautiful and fast, but its AI integration is limited. At present, it’s largely just a chatbot. It lacks any agentic browsing capabilities. Their current focus seems to be on “skills” which are basically just repackaged custom instructions. It’s unclear why these couldn’t have been integrated into Arc, which already had a strong user base.

That said, I do like Dia. It was genuinely helpful when I needed to fill out a visa application, referencing multiple tabs with my tickets and bookings. That moment highlighted their design-first philosophy, the interface is thoughtfully built and a pleasure to use. Still, they’re moving slowly on advanced AI features. Ironically, Comet copied their “skills” idea within a week.

The Google Chrome Elephant in the Room & the Cost of “Free” Browsing

And then there’s Google Chrome, still the king of browsers by market share. Despite that dominance, Google has been slow to integrate AI directly into Chrome. Their ambitious “Project Mariner” is reportedly locked behind a Google AI Ultra plan costing an eye-watering $249.99/month.

This raises a tough question: Is this the future of browsing? Perplexity Comet is already tied to a pricey Perplexity Max plan ($200/month or $2000/year), though a free version is said to be on the way. What used to be free and ad-supported may now require a hefty subscription.

Here’s the kicker: even if you pay, these companies are still collecting your data to train models and serve you increasingly sophisticated ads, possibly ones you won’t even recognise as ads. So, you’re paying for the privilege of being both the product and the customer.

The world of AI-powered browsers is exciting — but it’s also a wild frontier. There’s a big difference between flashy demo videos and what actually works.

Microsoft Edge rebrands existing features with minimal innovation, Perplexity Comet delivers useful AI integration but comes with reliability and privacy concerns, and Dia favors elegant design over AI ambition.

The big question isn’t just “Which AI browser is best?” It’s: “Is AI browsing truly ready and are we willing to pay, financially and with our data, for what’s currently on offer?”

For now, critical evaluation is essential. Don’t fall for the beautiful marketing videos. Test these tools with skepticism, especially when it comes to “agentic” promises or crucial information.

What are your thoughts? Have you tried any of these AI browsers? Share your experiences below!