New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- Perplexity has stated that its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered web browser, Comet, is free. That action instantly echoed across the technology industry and helped push Alphabet's stock down by 0.6% to $246.43 on Friday. On Thursday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sold 32,500 shares at an average price of $249.50.

The free plan eliminates the former $200-a-month limitation of Perplexity's Max plan, which had already drawn millions of early subscribers. With the cost removed, founder Aravind Srinivas makes Comet a direct competitor to Google Chrome and pre-empts the expected AI-powered browser from OpenAI.

In addition to standard browsing, Comet has functionality such as webpage summarisation and extracting key insig...