Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas claims that a new AI-powered browser can replace two critical office roles. A new AI-powered browser called Comet is causing controversy in the tech world. Unlike a chatbot, this browser is designed to perform actual tasks rather than just answering questions.
The CEO of Perplexity claims that two white-collar jobs that every business depends on could be replaced by his AI browser. According to CEO it is coming for administrative assistants and recruiters, two positions that are essential to any modern workplace.
What makes Comet different from a chatbot?
Srinivas described how his company’s new AI-native browser, Comet, is intended to completely automate knowledge work in addition to facilitating web browsing on Thursday’s episode of The Verge’s “Decoder” podcast.
He explained how Comet’s integrated AI agent can access applications such as Google Calendar, LinkedIn, and Gmail to create candidate lists, retrieve contact details, and send customized outreach emails, tasks that are normally performed by sourcers and recruiting coordinators, as per a report by Business Insider.
Which office roles are most at risk?
Aravind Srinivas claims the company’s new AI browser, Comet, can replace recruiters and executive assistants by automating almost all of their day-to-day tasks. While still invite-only, Comet is intended to perform white-collar tasks continuously in the background, indicating a rapidly approaching shift in office work as we know it.
According to Srinivas, Comet can handle a lot of an executive assistant’s daily responsibilities, such as calendar management, meeting preparation, and email triage.
“A recruiter’s work worth one week is just one prompt: sourcing and reach outs,” he stated.
“You want it to keep following up, keep a track of their responses,” he stated.
“If some people respond, go and update the Google Sheets, mark the status as responded or in progress, and follow up with those candidates, sync with my Google calendar, and then resolve conflicts and schedule a chat, and then push me a brief ahead of the meeting.”
According to Srinivas, Comet will eventually develop into an AI operating system for white-collar workers, one that can carry out commands from natural language prompts and run tasks continuously in the background.
Srinivas wagers that people will pay for AI that performs useful tasks, even though Comet is still invite-only and only accessible by premium users, as per a report by Business Insider.
How are other tech leaders reacting to this shift?
Whether AI will replace or reinvent white-collar jobs is a topic of debate among tech leaders. According to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, within five years, AI may replace 50% of entry-level positions. This opinion was echoed by Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, who stated at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month that artificial intelligence will replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the United States.
Instead of framing AI as a replacement engine, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff presented it as an augmentation tool. AI will change jobs, but it will change everyone’s, it has changed mine, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
There is widespread agreement that change is occurring quickly and that workers must adapt or risk becoming obsolete, even among more optimistic voices. In order to prevent the company’s white-collar workforce from being reduced by generative AI, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy advised staff members to educate themselves, participate in workshops, receive training, and use and experiment with AI whenever feasible, reported Business Insider.