OpenAI’s AI-powered browser, ChatGPT Atlas, is here

The next step for OpenAI in its battle against Google is an AI-powered web browser. The tool, called ChatGPT Atlas, is available today. The company made the announcement in a live stream after raising the matter earlier on Tuesday via a mysterious message video Browser tabs on a white screen.

ChatGPT Atlas is available “globally” on macOS starting today, while Windows, iOS, and Android will be arriving “soon,” according to the company. But its “proxy mode” is only available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users at the moment, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in the live stream.

“The way we hope people will use the Internet in the future… the chat experience in a web browser can be a great counterpart,” Altman said.

Along with Altman, OpenAI employees Will Ellsworth, who works in post-training research, participated in the live broadcast; Adam Fry, Product Manager at ChatGPT Search; Ben Goodger, an employee who in previous roles helped develop Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox; Ryan Oroki, interface designer; Justin Rushing, who previously worked at Apple; And Pranav Vishnu.

Fry said one of the browser’s best features is memory — which makes the browser “more personalized and more useful to you,” as well as agent mode, which means that “in Atlas, ChatGPT can now take actions on your behalf… It can help you book reservations, flights, or even just edit a document you’re working on.” Users can see and manage browser “memories” in settings, as well as open incognito windows, employees said.

Browser Agent Mode clearly builds on OpenAI’s previous forays into agent AI, such as Operator Tool, an early version of a tool that allows ChatGPT to use a computer on a user’s behalf, and ChatGPT Agent, the next iteration, which is designed to be able to complete more complex tasks, shopping, and more (although It wasn’t always successful in that field).

When you click on a link from a search result in Atlas, it will default to a split screen with the web page and ChatGPT text, and the goal is to display a “companion” at all times, staff said, though the user can turn off split screen if desired. In the live stream, employees also demonstrated the browser’s web page summarization features, as well as selecting text from an email and clicking a button to have ChatGPT arrange the sentence down the line — the latter feature is called “cursor chat.”

“This is a great all-around browser – it’s smooth, fast, and really nice to use,” Altman said.

The AI ​​browser wars have been raging for a while now, with OpenAI announcing a prototype of its search engine. It’s called SearchGPTdating back to July 2024. But in recent months, AI-powered browsers have seemed like the latest frontier in the AI ​​hype.

This summer, Perplexity launched a buzz Comet Browseran AI-powered solution that aims to simplify the way people browse the web and complete tasks. Instead of a laundry list of Google search results, you get Perplexity’s “answer engine,” which presents some links to relevant websites and generates an answer to your query. He – she Can also Clear all your open tabs, summarize videos, organize your email inbox, and even make purchases on Amazon.

In September, Google announced it would do so More in-depth inclusion Gemini AI Assistant in Chrome, and in the coming months it plans to allow Gemini in Chrome to be able to do “heavy tasks” for you, like grocery shopping, appointment scheduling, book reservations, and more — though Google declined to specify a launch date.