Perplexity AI Updates: May 17, 2026

1. Comet Assistant gains preference-aware browsing across shopping, food, and travel tasks

Perplexity. Perplexity rolled out an upgrade to Comet Assistant that lets the agent consult a user’s stored preferences when operating the browser autonomously. The change means Comet can match Etsy sticker searches to known style tastes, order lunch through delivery apps using saved dietary preferences, and surface flight options aligned with frequent destinations and seat preferences without re-prompting. The feature is part of the broader push to make Comet behave like a continuous proxy rather than a single-turn assistant. Source

2. Comet adds five-tab recency switcher with Option+Tab on Mac and opt-in Ctrl+Tab on Windows

Perplexity. Comet now ships with a keyboard shortcut for rapidly cycling through the five most recently visited tabs, designed to mirror the OS-level app switcher while keeping focus inside the browser. The binding is Option+Tab on macOS and an opt-in Ctrl+Tab on Windows, both documented in the official Comet shortcuts page. The change is aimed at heavy research workflows where users juggle reference tabs against an agent task and want sub-second context switching. Source

3. Thread search returns inline previews and deep-links to the matching follow-up

Perplexity. Perplexity rebuilt its past-thread search so users can find old conversations without recalling exact wording, surfacing matches that live deep inside long threads. Results now include a text preview of the matching content, and clicking through opens the thread at the exact follow-up where the match appears rather than at the top. The update targets a long-standing complaint about losing context inside Perplexity’s growing history of long-running research sessions. Source

4. Android app adds inline stock charts with expanded data and revamped controls

Perplexity. The Perplexity Android app now renders an inline stock chart whenever a user searches a ticker, with expanded fundamentals and a revamped control surface for timeframes and overlays. The chart treatment matches the company’s recent push to position Perplexity Finance as a daily-use surface, and follows the addition of after-hours trading data and intra-day refreshes elsewhere in the finance product. The update is rolling out alongside ongoing Personal Computer integrations that let Computer pull spending and brokerage context into research. Source