OpenAI unveils Atlas, AI-powered browser challenging Google Chrome

New Delhi: OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, an artificial intelligence-powered web browser built around its chatbot, in what marks a direct challenge to Google Chrome’s dominance, according to news reports.

The launch follows the rapid growth of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has attracted around 800 million weekly active users, and reflects the company’s expansion into new areas of users’ online activity, including collecting data on browser behaviour. 

Shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Chrome, fell 1.8% in afternoon trading following the announcement.

OpenAI enters a crowded AI browser market, which also includes Perplexity’s Comet, Brave Browser and Opera’s Neon. These platforms are developing tools that can summarise webpages, fill out forms and draft code to attract users.

Atlas allows users to open a ChatGPT sidebar in any window to summarise content, compare products or analyse data from websites. In “agent mode,” available to paid users, ChatGPT can interact with websites on their behalf, completing tasks such as researching and shopping.

In a demonstration on Tuesday, OpenAI showed ChatGPT finding an online recipe and automatically purchasing ingredients. The agent navigated to Instacart and added groceries to the cart, a process that took several minutes.

The browser is now available globally on Apple macOS, with versions for Windows, iOS and Android expected to follow.

OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, disrupted the tech sector with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. Since then, the company has faced competition from Google and the startup Anthropic while seeking new areas of growth.

Google has also been adjusting to changes in search behaviour, incorporating its Gemini AI model into Chrome for U.S. users and planning to expand Gemini to the iOS Chrome app. Depending on the query, Google search results can now display an AI overview, or “AI Mode,” alongside traditional links.

A federal judge ruled in September that Google would not have to sell the Chrome browser, allowing the company to continue paying partners to promote its search engine. Judge Amit Mehta noted that investments in generative AI by both Big Tech and startups pose a threat to traditional search, making such payments more acceptable.

Despite the emerging competition, Google Chrome retained a 71.9% share of the global browser market in September, according to StatCounter. Analysts said OpenAI’s browser could introduce fresh competition for online advertising.