OpenAI announced on Tuesday it’s rolling out a new internet browser called Atlas that integrates directly with ChatGPT. Atlas includes features like a sidebar window people can use to ask ChatGPT questions about the web pages they visit. There’s also an AI agent that can click around and complete tasks on a user’s behalf.
“We think that AI represents a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during a livestream announcing Atlas. “Tabs were great, but we haven’t seen a lot of browser innovation since then.”
Atlas debuts as Silicon Valley races to use generative AI to reshape how people experience the internet. Google has also announced a plethora of AI features for its popular Chrome browser, including a “sparkle” button that launches its Gemini chatbot. Chrome remains the most used browser worldwide.
OpenAI says the Atlas browser will be available starting today for ChatGPT users globally on macOS. Windows and mobile options are currently in the works. Atlas is free to use, though its agent features are reserved for subscribers to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Pro plans.
OpenAI highlighted how Atlas can help users research vacations and other activities.
Courtesy of OpenAI
“We’ve made some major upgrades to search on ChatGPT when accessed via Atlas,” Ryan O’Rouke, OpenAI’s lead designer for the browser, said during the livestream. If a user asks for movie reviews in the Atlas search bar, a chatbot-style answer will pop up first, rather than the more traditional collection of blue links users might expect when searching the web via Google.
Now, in addition to that result, users can switch to other tabs to see a collection of website links, images, videos, or news related to their queries. It’s a bit of an inversion of the Google Chrome experience. Rather than the search result being a collection of links with AI features added on top of that, the AI chatbot is central in Atlas, with the list of website links or image results as secondary.
Another feature OpenAI highlighted in the livestream is Atlas’ ability to collect “browser memories.” The capability is optional, and is an iteration of ChatGPT’s existing memory tool that stores details about users based on their past interactions with the chatbot. The browser can recall what you searched for in the past and use that data when suggesting topics of interest and actions to take, like automating an online routine it detects or returning back to a website you previously visited that could be helpful for a current project.
In Atlas, users can highlight whatever they are writing and request assistance from ChatGPT.
Courtesy of OpenAI
Atlas has an optional memory feature that can recall what users searched for in the past.
Courtesy of OpenAI
Tech giants and smaller startups have been experimenting with baking AI into web browsers for the past several years. Microsoft was one of the first movers when it threw its AI tool, called Bing at the time, into its Edge browser as a sidebar. Since then, browser-focused companies like Opera and Brave have also continued to tinker with different AI integrations. Another notable entry in the AI browser wars is Perplexity’s Comet, which launched this year and is also free to use.
While this is OpenAI’s first foray into a stand-alone browser, it’s not the first time the company has attempted to blend generative AI and web surfing. Earlier this year, OpenAI debuted an agent tool inside ChatGPT that is designed to be sent off to complete tasks for the user, like comparing multiple products and deciding which could be worth buying based on the person’s preferences and lifestyle. When WIRED experimented with letting the bot click around on the web, attempt to complete research, and even play chess, the results were slow and sometimes inaccurate.