Comet, Agents and the Power of 5

Hello,

This is Simon with the latest edition of The Weekly. In these updates, I share key AI related stories from this week's news, list upcoming events, and share any longer form articles posted on the website.

This last week has been impressive
It’s true that the world of AI moves at a rapid pace, one that none of us can really keep up with, but this last week feels like a notable step forward.

First up, I got access to Perplexity’s Comet browser. I’m using it write now as I write this article. Comet is based on the Chromium project, which is the very solution Google’s Chrome browser is also built on, so on many levels, Comet is very familiar. What is different, however, is the Assistant side panel that puts the power of Perplexity right at hand without needing to switch apps or tabs, and removing lots of “copy/paste”. It’s incredibly convenient for asking questions about the page you are currently viewing, but it also has agentic capabilities, so instead of just asking it “can you give me feedback on this page” you can also ask it to “open every article on the page and give me a summary of the quality of writing.” (yes I did this for Plain AI).

When you also perform a search in the address bar, it also defaults to showing you results from Perplexity, and not Google, like you might be accustomed to. There’s already a lot of talk about search volumes at Google declining, as people use AI more and more, and I think the Comet browser might just add to that trend.

Secondly, I started using Openai's agent mode, and this genuinely changes the way we use AI chatbots. For example, I took a list of potential blog articles someone had produced and asked ChatGPT to create a content calendar for one blog post a week, along with two Linkedin posts to promote that week's article. Additionally, I asked it to add these to a Google Calendar. After logging in to Google, it proceeded to do so. It would have taken me hours to manually create all those calendar entries, not to mention figuring out what the content calendar should look like initially. While we are considering ways to utilise this technology today, I firmly believe it will become commonplace for many of us by the end of the year.

And thirdly, I gained access to ChatGPT 5 last night, which has been long anticipated. It does not represent the AGI that many commentators thought it would be some time ago, but it introduces a fundamental change in how we select the model we use for a specific task (you do that right?). Now, the system will recognise the intention behind your prompt and will self-select which model(s) it should use to best complete the task, and it works exceptionally well. Last night, I asked it to plan a road trip from Calais to Dormans in France using non-toll roads with stops for coffee and then lunch. It then asked if I would like a printable PDF with all the details and links for each step of the journey to the relevant Google Maps directions. Not only am I looking forward to the trip, but I am also eager to explore GPT-5 further to see what it can do.

Have you tried any of these items yourself? How did you find them? Or if not, can you think of ways that they might be useful in your everday work and lives?

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Capgemini forecasts that AI agents may deliver up to $450 billion in economic value through cost savings and revenue growth, but adoption remains low. Only 2% of organisations worldwide (and just 1% in the UK) have fully scaled deployments. Declining trust is a significant barrier, with global trust dropping from 43% to 27%.

Why this matters: Companies risk missing out on major efficiency gains unless they build trust and infrastructure to support agentic AI.

Airbnb’s CEO shared that the company is shifting to become an “AI‑first application.” Future features will include personalised AI agents that can handle bookings and trip planning on behalf of users.

Why this matters: A clear signal that consumer platforms are moving toward full autonomy, raising expectations for if not competitive pressure on similar services.

Noma Security raised $100 million to provide real‑time monitoring and protection tools for AI agents, aimed at preventing manipulation, security breaches, or rogue behaviour in autonomous systems.

Why this matters: Highlights increasing demand among enterprises for guardrails as they deploy agentic AI operationally.

Efficiency and competitive pressure: Autonomous agents are positioned to streamline operations across industries, from investment to travel and professional services.

Trust and control matter: Adoption hinges on governance and securing these agents—echoed by funding for security solutions like Noma.

Real-world acceleration: Leading firms like McKinsey and Airbnb are already embedding agentic AI into their core, signaling others may need to follow or risk falling behind.

Thanks for reading, and see you next Friday.

Simon,

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