OpenAI announced on On Tuesday, a modern web browser called Atlas will be released that integrates directly with ChatGPT. Atlas includes features such as a sidebar window where you can ask ChatGPT questions about the websites you visit. There is also an AI agent that can click and perform tasks on the user’s behalf.
“We believe AI represents a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during a livestream announcing Atlas. “Tabs were great, but we haven’t seen much innovation in browsers since then.”
Atlas debuts as Silicon Valley races to exploit generative artificial intelligence to change the way people exploit the internet. Google also announced a slew of AI features for its popular Chrome browser, including a “glossy” button that launches the Gemini chatbot. Chrome remains most frequently used browser all over the world.
OpenAI says the Atlas browser will be available starting today for ChatGPT users worldwide on macOS. Options for Windows and mobile devices are currently being developed. Atlas is free, although its agent features are reserved for subscribers to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Pro plans.
“We’ve made some significant improvements to ChatGPT search when accessed via Atlas,” Ryan O’Rouke, lead designer of the OpenAI browser, said during the livestream. If a user asks about movie reviews in the Atlas search bar, the first thing that appears is a chatbot-style response, rather than the more conventional collection of blue links that users might expect when searching the web using Google.