00:00We start by introducing you as an OpenAI competitor, but really, this is a Google Chrome competitor.
00:07We're focused on building a better internet on Comet.
00:11You know, the browser is due for a major refresh.
00:15We want to serve and satisfy the world's curiosity and do a great job answering people's questions.
00:22And Comet is putting us on the path there and super excited to get to share with everyone this week.
00:28Dimitri, it also makes people ask different kinds of questions and far more questions, as you've said, from the reaction of users already.
00:35Can you give us some statistics? Because we knew that there were millions of people lining up to use this.
00:40The UX people are really complimenting you. How many people are using it now?
00:45Yeah, so we had millions of people on our wait list and they're all getting onboarded this week.
00:51How many millions?
00:51You know, it's your job to ask those questions and it's my job to compete against a $3 trillion monopoly.
00:59So we're not going to be able to share everything today.
01:03But some of the really fascinating stats we're seeing in terms of user engagement is when a user starts being on Comet,
01:11they ask 6 to 18 times more questions than they were before.
01:14And that's really, you know, for us, that and retention are the key markers of success.
01:20And that's why we felt, you know, very comfortable and excited to open this up.
01:25Dimitri, we're a technology show and you're in the technology industry.
01:29And I think one thing that's true of technology is that just being first to something new doesn't guarantee that you capture that market, right?
01:37You know, Apple and the smartphone versus BlackBerry.
01:41That's a good example.
01:42I've just at the root of my question is what is stopping Google now from looking at what you've done with Comet and saying, oh, we can do that too?
01:52Yeah, well, we're actually not new to it.
01:55We're not the first to browsers, right?
01:57Google's been doing this for over 20 years.
02:01And their approach to AI is to bolt it on to their existing browser.
02:05We've built an AI-native browser from the ground up.
02:11And our biggest advantage, you know, when competing against trillion-dollar companies is execution velocity.
02:16It's the clock speed of iterating and improving the product.
02:20You know, if it sounds like you guys were using it back in July, you've probably noticed how much it's gotten better.
02:26You've noticed that we launched for our max users background assistants and the email assistant.
02:31And so it's that rate of improvement, particularly in AI, where new foundation model capabilities advance not every six months, but literally every three to four weeks.
02:44And so having the clock cycle around incorporating and finding the useful applications of those new capabilities, that's where the alpha is.
02:52Dimitri, you're the chief business officer.
02:55What's the monetization pathway for Comet?
02:58How are you going to make money from this platform in the end?
03:01Yeah, we're fortunate to have a variety of subscription products.
03:06Our Perplexity Pro offering Perplexity Max.
03:09And our only expense is inference.
03:13And so we're able to tailor to a given user's needs the right subscription product.
03:19And so that's, you know, led to explosive ARR growth for us just this year.
03:26And we're excited about subscriptions as a path forward.
03:29Looking at your media partners, this is where subscriptions comes in.
03:33Five dollars for direct access to basically Comet Plus, which you call is a groundbreaking business model for premium journalism.
03:40How does that expand, Dimitri? Because all these publishers need paying, too.
03:45Yeah, I'm so glad you asked about Comet Plus.
03:49The Internet deserves not just a better browser, but a better business model.
03:54I think we're all exhausted with the traffic and clickbait, you know, dynamics that have really, you know, led to a race to the bottom on the Internet.
04:04And what we're doing with Comet Plus is actually aligning economics with, you know, the AI age, where publishers get compensated when users directly access their content, when their AI accesses the content, and when search indexes access the content.
04:21And this is really taking, you know, a lot of what publishers loved about the Apple News Plus model and expanding it to the full power of the browser.
04:31Talking of Apple, their AI partnership strategy is going to broaden out from OpenAI.
04:36Are you going to be joining briefly?
04:38We want to be wherever our users are, and our users certainly are on Apple devices, and we're confident that the best OEMs will want the best AIs integrated deeply into their products, and, you know, we're excited for the path ahead there.
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