The news: PayPal and Venmo users can receive early access to Perplexity’s new browser, Comet, with a free 12-month trial of Perplexity Pro. 

For a limited time, US customers can get $50 back if they link and pay for three subscriptions in the hub

How we got here: PayPal and Venmo partnered with Perplexity this summer to power “conversational commerce” shopping within Perplexity’s AI chat interface. 

With Comet, PayPal stands to pick up significant payment volume—the browser specializes in hyperpersonalized ads.

Mutual advantages: As the designated payment platform for Perplexity, PayPal is trying to gain an early mover advantage in agentic commerce. 

Perplexity, meanwhile, is trying to tap PayPal and Venmo’s combined 170.1 million US users, per our forecast, to chip away at Chrome’s browser dominance: Chrome controls 67.1% of all internet browser traffic, per StatCounter. 

Perplexity made a $34.5 billion bid to buy Chrome this August amid Google’s antitrust battle. While the recent ruling was a better case scenario for Google—no break up, only oversight—Perplexity’s name still wiggled its way into the mainstream as a potential competitor to Chrome. 

Our take: Big Tech is betting that agentic commerce is the future of shopping, but consumers aren’t on board yet: Nearly 70% of US adults are not interested in AI-powered shopping assistants, per a September 2024 EMARKETER and CivicScience survey. 

While jostling for future positioning in the market, PayPal, Venmo, and Perplexity need to convince consumers that agentic commerce is a desirable payment option, lest they repeat a metaverse investment flop.

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