OpenAI unveiled its AI browser, ChatGPT Atlas, during a livestream on Tuesday. There are other AI browsers such as The Browser Company’s Dia, Opera’s Neon, Perplexity’s Comet, and General Catalyst-backed Strawberry. OpenAI’s launch is notable because of the sheer scale of reaching potentially 800 million of its weekly ChatGPT users. For the company, the browser is much more about keeping ChatGPT central than about making web browsing better. While Atlas is currently available only on the Mac, the company is already working on bringing it to Windows, iOS, and Android — all the surfaces where ChatGPT already exists. OpenAI has also made the browser available to all users instead of opting for an invite system like its rivals. The core proposition of the browser is for you to think of ChatGPT as the first interaction surface for search and answers instead of Google. All the AI browsers share a similar idea about search and Q&A. Instead of performing a search query, you would type something in your address bar to get answers from an AI chatbot, instead of looking at pages of links. And OpenAI, just like other browser makers, thinks that Atlas will change the way you browse the web, as Sam Altman made clear at the launch. “We think AI represents once in a decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be, how to use one, and how to most productively use the web. Tabs were great but there hasn’t been a lot of innovation since then,” Altman said in his opening speech. Tech leaders, including Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, have talked about AI as a platform shift. However, for consumers, phones and desktop operating systems are still the primary way to get to their AI tools. OpenAI wants to own the pipes of distribution of ChatGPT as much as it can. Last week, Meta shut its doors to third-party chatbots, including ChatGPT and Perplexity on WhatsApp, which has over 3 billion monthly users. This essentially means that the platform owners could put the brakes on distributi...
First seen: 2025-10-22 19:27
Last seen: 2025-10-23 15:31