OpenAI is coming into the browser world with the launch of ChatGPT Atlas, an AI-enabled browser.
Atlas, now accessible globally, could be accessed by means of Apple’s macOS, with assist for Home windows, iOS and Android coming quickly. The announcement comes a number of months after rumors in July that OpenAI would launch an online browser that will problem the dominance of Google’s Chrome.
In a livestream, CEO Sam Altman mentioned he hopes Atlas will assist deliver a few new method of interacting with and utilizing the net, one the place folks chat with the browser fairly than typing a URL.
“We predict AI represents a uncommon once-in-a-decade alternative to rethink what a browser could be about and use one, and most productively and pleasantly use the net,” Altman mentioned. “Tabs had been nice, however we haven’t seen loads of innovation since then, so we received very excited to actually rethink what this may very well be.”
Atlas is supposed to supply customers a extra seamless method to browse the net and ask chat brokers questions. It invitations customers to both seek for data by way of a immediate or query, or simply sort a URL.
A part of Atlas’s worth proposition is the flexibility to name on brokers to do duties straight within the browser. Nonetheless, brokers will solely be accessible to ChatGPT Enterprise, Plus and Professional customers for now.
Customers can obtain Atlas from its devoted website, however should log in to their ChatGPT account to start utilizing it.
Chatting with a browser about your recollections
Atlas differentiates itself from browsers like Chrome or Apple’s Safari with its chat characteristic. The house web page primarily is ChatGPT, with a immediate field and several other steered questions. In the course of the livestream, OpenAI mentioned that the extra folks use Atlas, the extra customized the ideas shall be.
The chat field “follows” the person, which means folks can chat with ChatGPT on any web site. The mannequin will learn what’s on the browser and reply any questions customers might need.
Whenever you first open Atlas, it prompts you to import knowledge from different browsers chances are you’ll be utilizing. After I arrange mine, it solely requested me for Chrome or Safari, the 2 browsers I primarily use. Importing browser knowledge creates a reminiscence base for Atlas that ChatGPT will reference. To date, Atlas’s reminiscence is hit and miss. I linked my Chrome historical past, and once I requested a few current journey vacation spot search I did (and have been looking for day-after-day for a month), Atlas claimed I had by no means looked for that data.
The in-browser chat additionally reduces the copy-pasting that customers usually resort to when, say, writing an electronic mail. Individuals can open their Gmail, then ask ChatGPT within the browser to assist tidy up the message. After all, Gmail or another Google Workspace product already gives Gemini-powered capabilities, corresponding to electronic mail rewriting.
OpenAI CEO of Functions, Fidji Simo, mentioned in a weblog put up that customers can toggle browser reminiscence on or off and management what it might see.
Agent mode on the browser
Previously few months, OpenAI has shored up its agent infrastructure within the expectation that people and enterprises will rely an increasing number of on brokers.
Brokers on Atlas can use the browser if wanted to perform a activity. For instance, you can be taking a look at a recipe and ask chat to construct a grocery listing. The agent can then start procuring in your most well-liked grocery website. OpenAI has already added a purchase button to ChatGPT and proposed an agentic commerce protocol, which may very well be useful for Atlas. Nonetheless, through the demo, OpenAI employees opted to not let the agent proceed to buy merchandise.
Having the agent straight within the browser strikes a step past level A, the place the browser makes use of an agent in Chrome. Ideally, it already is aware of what you had been taking a look at and has the knowledge it must entry and execute on the browser.
A brand new browser battle
With extra folks utilizing AI fashions and chat platforms for internet searches, launching an AI-enabled browser has turn out to be one other battleground for mannequin suppliers. After all, as Chrome has turn out to be extra fashionable, it has slowly added AI capabilities due to Google’s Gemini fashions. Google has additionally been experimenting with different AI-powered search capabilities, corresponding to generative picture search. However, firms like Perplexity, with its Comet browser, is hoping to tackle Chrome. Opera, lengthy a Chrome competitor, additionally repositioned itself as an AI-powered browser by embedding AI options into its platform.
For some, Atlas represents a contemporary new method to make use of an online browser.
Nonetheless, many identified that Atlas doesn’t precisely reinvent the wheel, because it shares some options with Comet.
What’s attention-grabbing about Atlas is how acquainted it’s. It seems similar to ChatGPT, nevertheless it additionally has tabs like Chrome.
OpenAI emphasised that that is the primary model of Atlas, implying that this might not be its closing type. What’s for certain is that Atlas is OpenAI’s first volley within the AI browser wars.
