OpenAI unveiled a web browser on Tuesday in a bid to make its ChatGPT AI product the starting point for accessing the Internet and establish itself as a mainstay of the Internet economy.
ChatGPT Atlas, as the new browser is called, looks and functions much like a standard web browser but integrates generative AI capabilities throughout the experience, putting ChatGPT front and center for everything from online searching and e-commerce shopping to email.
“The browser is really where a lot of work and life happens,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in a livestream announcement and demo of the new browser on Tuesday. “We think that by making ChatGPT a primary way to use this… we can take this much further.”
Shares of Alphabet, whose Chrome product is the world’s most popular web browser, fell 3.6% on the news, before recovering some of their gains and ending the regular trading session down 2.2% at $251.34. Shares of Apple and Microsoft, both of which also make popular web browsers, ended Tuesday’s session essentially flat.
OpenAI, valued at $500 billion, kicked off its generative AI boom with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Since then, a wave of well-capitalized companies, from Meta, Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft, as well as startups like Anthropic, have invested aggressively in competing big language models and bots. AI-based chat.
OpenAI made Atlas available for Mac computers on Tuesday, and said it plans to offer versions for Windows PCs and mobile devices in the future.
ChatGPT Atlas represents a threat to Google not only as a web browser, but as a potential replacement for Google’s search engine. The Atlas Browser “home page” looks similar to the Google Search home page, except that the box in the center of the white page is for interacting with the ChatGPT AI bot rather than Google’s search engine. The ChatGPT box acts as a traditional chatbot that users can talk to, a search engine, and as a browser address box, where users type the URL of the web page they want to visit.
A set of links directly within the ChatGPT search box lists various topics, such as trending news items, which are customized based on the user’s browsing history and interests.
OpenAI live stream
Among the features in Atlas Browser is the Ask GPT button; Users can click on it and ask the AI bot for additional information or insights related to any web page they visit. (In one example the company showed in a demo, a user could turn to the bot for advice on whether a pair of running shoes on a shopping site would be suitable for a marathon.) A “memory” feature allows users to retrieve a previous web page by describing what the page was about.
Atlas Browser will also make it easier for users to set up “agents” that will perform tasks on their behalf, such as ordering ingredients for a recipe. OpenAI said the proxy feature will initially only be available to customers who pay for the ChatGPT Plus and Pro versions.
OpenA is one of many companies that have set their sights on the web browser — one of the Internet’s oldest and most staid products — hoping to upend the status quo and perhaps reignite the popular browser wars of the early Internet era. San Francisco-based startup Perplexity launched the Comet AI web browser in July, and Opera, one of the leaders in web browsers since the dot-com days, recently launched its AI-powered Neon browser.
Web browsers haven’t seen much innovation since the introduction of tabs, a feature dating back to the early 2000s, OpenAI’s Altman said Tuesday.
During Tuesday’s demo, OpenAI staff acknowledged the security risks that come with new features like “proxy” capabilities, which essentially hand over control of the browser to ChatGPT. OpenAI said it has built in several safeguards, including the ability to use the browser without allowing the agent to log in, and noted that the ChatGPT agent can only access data within the browser, not files on the user’s computer.
However, some commentators expressed concern about potential security and privacy implications following Atlas’ launch. “The security and privacy risks involved here are still insurmountably high for me — and I certainly wouldn’t trust any of these products until a group of security researchers hit them very, very thoroughly.” Simon Wilson wrotean open source developer who publishes a popular blog about technology and artificial intelligence.
To take a closer look On how AI-powered tools are reviving the “browser wars,” read this in-depth article recently published by Fortune.
to update: This story has been updated to include more details about the launch.
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