OpenAI’s new browser is a broadside shot at Google

Summary

Today, OpenAI launched its new Atlas web browser in a surprise livestream. The show started with CEO Sam Altman himself, speaking directly to the audience. “We think AI represents a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be,” Altman said. “In the same way that, for the previous way people used the internet, the URL bar and the search box were a great analogue, what we’re starting to see is that the chat experience and the web browser can be a quick analogue.” It was an inspiring note, in the classic Steve Jobs mode. But even more important than Altman’s browser was the detritus he was sweeping aside to make room. It wasn’t just casting present-day browsers as old, but part of a whole package of goods that are about to be replaced by AI — as Altman put it, part of “the previous way people used the internet.” And most of those soon-to-be obsolete services trace back to a single company: Google. OpenAI’s browser project has been an open secret in Silicon Valley since at least this summer — and it was clear from the beginning that it would be a potential threat to Google, current owner of the world’s most popular browser. But Tuesday’s product and presentation details made it clear exactly how much the web giant has to lose in the AI era — and how little the Google’s success with Gemini seems to have helped. The immediate threat is simple enough: ChatGPT draws 800 million users a week, and if those users switch to Atlas, they’re most likely switching away from Chrome. Losing those users doesn’t have an immediate dollar cost for Google (it’s a free product, after all) but it limits Google’s ability to target ads to those users or nudge them to Google Search — a particular sore point because, just last month, Google was barred by the US Department of Justice from making any search exclusivity deals. Then, there’s how OpenAI deals with search itself. AI has already strained the search model of the web, surfacing processed information instead of conte...