Oct. 2 (UPI) — Officials for San Francisco-based Perplexity AI on Thursday announced the tech startup’s Comet browser that is powered by artificial intelligence is free to download and available globally.
Perplexity initially launched the Comet browser in July for its Perplexity Max subscribers and created a waitlist for others, which now includes millions of potential users, according to CNBC.
The browser features a “sidecar assistant” that helps users to more effectively browse the World Wide Web and can summarize and explain content on particular web pages, TechCrunch reported.
Paid Max subscribers also can access a “background assistant “that helps Comet users to multitask while online.”
Additional Comet browser tools for free users include Discover, which aggregates news and content for individual users, and Shopping, which helps with price comparisons for online shoppers.
Spaces is another Comet tool and helps to organize projects and manage their progress, and a Finance tool assists with budgeting, tracking spending and staying abreast of investments.
A Sports tool offers updates schedules, scores and sports news, while a Travel tool provides information on potential destinations, travel and accommodation costs.
Those who continue to subscribe to Perplexity Max can access AI models and use an email assistant that helps to draft and respond to emails and keep inboxes organized.
The Comet browser competes directly with Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and others that have launched AI-driven web browsers and comes after Perplexity officials tried to buy Google.
The tech firm in August made a $34.5 billion offer to buy Google’s Chrome browser, which Google first launched in 2008.
Perplexity was valued at $18 billion at the time, but company officials said they had financial backing from others when making the unsolicited offer that Google declined.
Perplexity made the offer after the Justice Department encouraged Google to sell its Chrome browser after a federal antitrust lawsuit concluded that tech firm has monopolized online search and text advertising.
Netflix Inc. has begun using artificial intelligence video generation software from startup Runway AI, testing the waters with a technology that’s controversial in Hollywood.
Netflix is currently using the New York-based startup’s tools in content production, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named in order to discuss private conversations. Netflix declined to comment.
Walt Disney Co., meanwhile, has been testing out Runway’s technology and has talked with the startup about possible uses for its generative AI tools, the person said. A Disney spokesperson said the company has no plans to integrate Runway’s software into its content production pipeline at this time. Runway declined to comment.
The companies’ use of Runway’s AI video tools, which has not previously been reported, could raise concerns in the entertainment industry. Many film and TV professionals are anxious about AI’s impact on their livelihoods. Disney recently sued Midjourney Inc., another AI image and video startup, for copyright infringement. But AI also offers the promise of speeding up some video production tasks and saving money.
In a conference call Thursday, after Netflix released its second-quarter results, co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos said the company is using AI in content production. That includes creating special effects shots more quickly and cheaply than it previously had been able to with traditional visual effects tools and processes.
Sarandos said Netflix used the technology for the first time on screen to depict a building collapsing in a show called “El Eternaut” from Argentina. He did not disclose which AI software it used for that particular scene; a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named in order to discuss private information, said Runway’s software was not used to create the effect.
Runway is competing in an increasingly crowded corner of the fast-growing market for AI tools with established companies like OpenAI and Google, along with a slew of smaller, newer startups.
The startup has more traction than most AI startups in Hollywood, however. It kicked off a frenzy around AI video generators in early 2023 with the release of a model that could produce slightly choppy-looking three-second clips based on written prompts such as “drone footage of a desert landscape.” Its technology has since become far more capable and the company has inked a deal with Lionsgate to train an AI model on the studio’s content that can be used in its film projects.
Investors have poured $545 million into the company thus far, with a funding round of $308 million earlier this year valuing the company at more than $3 billion.
More recently, Runway has pushed deeper into the world of animation and special effects. Earlier this month, the company started rolling out a new AI model called Act-Two that is meant to make the motion-capture process — traditionally clunky, pricey and time consuming — simpler and cheaper. The model, which works with Runway’s flagship Gen-4 AI system, can map a video of a person’s body movements onto animated characters.
Other AI startups have also tried to make inroads in the entertainment industry. As Bloomberg News previously reported, OpenAI spent months talking to large studios, including Disney, about its AI video generator, Sora. While OpenAI has found a receptive audience among some filmmakers, it has yet to announce a large commercial partnership for the product.
From compliance to stablecoins to microbusinesses, fintech labs germinate next-gen uses for AI.
You wouldn’t think that the quipu—an abacuslike system of knotted cords used by the Incas for record keeping—would have much application to the breakneck adoption of artificial intelligence among financial institutions (FIs). But a Colombian financial-services company nurtured by Bancolombia Ventures harkens to that system. Quipu deploys AI-powered analyses of alternative data to determine the creditworthiness of microbusinesses.
Quipu’s work is just one example of the growing importance of AI to financial institutions. According to Statista, the financial sector “exhibit[s] one of the highest adoption rates across industries.” In fact, Statista estimates that in 2024, the financial services industry invested roughly $45 billion in AI technology. Concurrently, NVIDIA found that more than half of the companies represented in its global State of AI in Financial Services: 2025 Trends report view AI as “crucial to their future success.” Of the 600 financial services professionals surveyed, 98% of managers say that their organizations plan to increase AI infrastructure spending this year.
Many banks have already deployed AI to automate internal processes such as customer onboarding, credit scoring, fraud detection, and loan processing. Increasingly, FIs consider AI a pivotal tool for efficiency and cost-effectiveness in meeting evolving anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations.
As these innovations become more commonplace, some banks may wonder what’s next for AI? That’s where innovations arising from the world’s best fintech labs come in.
AI capabilities continue to mature. Enhanced AI capabilities will help FIs generate new business value, but only if those institutions follow the advance from AI to generative AI (Gen AI).
The term “artificial intelligence” is used for technologies that can perform tasks previously requiring human brain power. Relying on historical data and rules-based systems, these capabilities recognize patterns, understand language, and detect anomalies—notably, the types of anomalies that can indicate fraud.
Gen AI is a specialized branch of AI that exceeds content analysis to actually produce content. Gen AI can write. It can simulate human conversation. It can code. It can generate images and videos.
The difference between AI and Gen AI can be seen in chatbots. Imagine this: A customer asks a chatbot, “Why was my credit card application denied?” An AI-powered chatbot may return a list of common reasons for the bank to deny credit, followed by a customer-service phone number for the user to call. A Gen AI-powered chatbot may respond with, “Your credit card application was denied because your credit score is too low. Your credit score is too low because a $2,000 write-off appears on your credit report. This write-off seems to be related to an auto loan from ABC Motors. Repaying this debt will help you improve your credit score. You may want to contact ABC Motors to settle this debt. Consider negotiating a ‘pay-for-delete’ arrangement.”
“Loan sharks were these businesses’ only solution. We’re an alternative to that.”
Mercedes Bidart, CEO and Founder, Quipu
Chatbot improvement is just one way Gen AI can improve business for FIs. It can study customer data to more closely tailor marketing strategies and financial services to individual needs. It can improve loan and investment strategies by generating “what if ” scenarios to help banks chart, for example, how changing interest rates affect customers’ willingness to take out new loans, and customers’ ability to repay those loans. And, as the innovations discussed below indicate, AI and Gen AI can help banks and their clients hasten international trade. They can help spot and stop previously unknown threats to bank infrastructures and data. And they can provide a financial lifeline to the underbanked.
Bancolombia Ventures partners with startups, focusing on topics such as fintech, climate-related technology, and cybersecurity. One of those startups, Quipu, has developed a new credit-scoring system tailored to what Bancolombia calls the “informal” nature of business in Latin America.
Quipu CEO and Founder Mercedes Bidart (center) with co-founders Viviana Siless (CTO) and Juan Cristobal Constain (COO).
According to El Pais, a leading Colombian newspaper, close to 95% of all businesses in that country are microenterprises—defined as operations with 10 employees or less. While employing 65% of the Colombian workforce, these organizations tend to suffer from “business dwarfism,” or an inability to grow. Why? They lack access to capital. Traditional credit scoring methods paint them as a bad risk.
This is a problem that Mercedes Bidart, Quipu CEO, is trying to solve. The MIT graduate notes that most microentrepreneurs in the country operate as freelancers. “They have their digital wallet or bank account as a person, not as a business,” Bidart says. “They come in for an SME [small or midsize enterprise] loan at the bank, but they won’t get that. There’s no information about their business behavior.”
The Quipu system finds new ways to detect business value. It looks at business location, social media posts (including videos, pictures, and customer comments) and other nontraditional sources of information to determine business health. Even Google Maps can indicate whether a business is growing—showing, perhaps, the physical expansion of a home-based garage over time.
Quipu uses this information to develop its own credit scores for microbusinesses. Potential new clients are often referred by Bancolombia, from its pool of declined applicants. Quipu has offered many of these microbusinesses loans ranging from $100 to $2,000—for a total of $3.5 million in loans granted over the past 18 months. While these are personal loans, rather than business loans, Bidart believes that these small infusions of cash will help some businesses grow to the point where they eventually qualify for more-traditional SME loans.
“The people we serve—before us the only financial solution they had was the predatory lender. We have loan sharks. They charge abusive interest rates, and they’re violent,” Bidart says. “They operate from Mexico to Argentina. In Colombia, loan sharks were these businesses’ only solution. We’re an alternative to that.”
Let’s take look at innovations arising at other fintech labs around the world.
