If One Prompt Can Do Two Jobs, What Happens To The Office?

Perplexity AI’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, just dropped the kind of claim that makes recruiters and executive assistants clutch their ergonomic office chairs a little tighter. He says their new AI browser, Comet, can do both jobs with a single prompt. Yup, one line of text and suddenly your recruiter, your assistant, and possibly your office’s snack thief are all out of a gig. Comet will scour LinkedIn, email strangers, juggle your calendar, and even spit out a meeting brief while you’re still trying to figure out why Zoom always makes your face look like you haven’t slept in three years.

This isn’t “AI makes my emails sound smarter” news. This is “AI shows up at work, grabs a desk, and takes over your to-do list” news. Recruiters normally spend a whole week chasing candidates, sending follow-ups, updating spreadsheets, and scheduling interviews. Comet says it does all that instantly. That’s like replacing an entire HR team with a particularly obedient golden retriever who somehow also has Wi-Fi. If that’s real, offices everywhere are about to feel very different.

Perplexity wants your web browser to stop being the place you open 47 tabs you’ll never close and start being the place you get actual work done. Forget Chrome, they’re saying, because Comet won’t just show you cat videos, it’ll give your cat a job, set up the interview, and email you a performance review before lunch. Their bigger play? Compete with Microsoft Copilot, Google Workspace, OpenAI agents, and basically every other tech giant screaming, “We’re your new AI boss now!” Srinivas even floated the idea that people might pay thousands of dollars for one single prompt. Which makes you wonder: if the AI is worth two grand per sentence, shouldn’t your high school English teacher be charging royalties?

If you’re a CEO, you’re probably already writing your “AI saved us millions” LinkedIn post. If you’re a VP or Manager, you’re sweating about which employees you can replace without ending up on the wrong side of a viral TikTok. If you’re an individual contributor, you’re nervously asking yourself if “attaching PDFs” is really a skill the robots can’t take. And if you’re just a regular everyday American, you’re thinking, “Cool, now I don’t have to answer emails. But also… is this thing going to apply for my job while I’m watching Netflix?”

Offices might soon be run by AI assistants that don’t take bathroom breaks, don’t ask for promotions, and don’t eat the yogurt you clearly labeled in the fridge. The only catch is, if they actually work as advertised, the “future of work” might arrive faster than your Uber Eats delivery.

Your move. Does this feel exciting, terrifying, or like the plot of a bad sitcom where Dwight Schrute gets replaced by a laptop? Could this AI actually replace you, your coworker, or your community? Or is it just another tech demo that looks amazing until it tries to schedule a meeting with someone who died in 2016? Tell me, how does this land for you?

- Matt Masinga