Comet, in particular, is well set up to do students’ work for them—it’s not your average chatbot. Built by Perplexity as what it calls an “agentic” AI browser, it’s designed to do more than just spit out text: It can interpret your instructions, take actions on your behalf, fill out forms, and navigate complex workflows. That level of autonomy enables Comet to churn through assignments in seconds, but it also introduces new risks when deployed.
At the same time, Comet’s capabilities are precisely what make it so useful in academic cheating scenarios. It’s designed to act, not just advise, which means that “studying support” can shift into “doing the work for you.” That shift is evident in the Coursera video, and it reframes most debates about AI in education: It’s no longer just about content generation (essays or summaries), but about automation in form and function.
