OpenAI was recently released The Atlas Browser is a fascinating inversion of what users can expect from a browser, focusing AI responses above traditional web links. Every click in a regular browser is an opportunity to see a new part of the web. Every click on Atlas is an opportunity to use ChatGPT.
Just typed a question in the address bar? It is now a ChatGPT query. Want help contextualizing a web page? The Ask ChatGPT sidebar can see and analyze what’s on your screen. Want someone to buy your Halloween costume? “Agent Mode” can click Amazon and throw some vampire fangs into your cart.
Ryan O’Rouke, OpenAI’s lead designer for the browser, demonstrated the Ask ChatGPT feature during Atlas’ live announcement. It asked him to digest the GitHub code that appears on the web page in his browser. He called it “a major unlock” as ChatGPT can now see what’s happening on the page. “It’s basically you inviting ChatGPT into your corner of the Internet,” O’Rouke said.
The Ask ChatGPT feature is especially free to use in Atlas, unlike the browser agent tool which is reserved for ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro subscribers. Here, ChatGPT appears as another bot constrained by columns on the right side of the screen, just like the AI sidebars in Perplexity’s Comet browser and Microsoft Edge.
After a few days of testing OpenAI’s Ask ChatGPT feature in the Atlas browser, I’m convinced I want to surf the web alone. No sidebar. in peace
The browser is built on Chromium, an open source browser project managed by Google that provides the code base for Chrome, Opera and others. Because of this, Atlas is very similar to Chrome. (While switching between the two browsers on my laptop during testing, I forgot which was which a couple of times.) The nascent browser’s best days are still ahead, with a roadmap of upcoming features like tab groups and an ad blocker that could make it a fuller Chrome competitor. It’s currently only available on macOS.
With that in mind, Atlas’s Ask ChatGPT sidebar felt off during my early days. Not only was it hard to get used to, but I had trouble thinking of questions to ask about news articles, online recipes, and other web pages as I scrolled. Also, the sidebar crushes the main content window, so the websites you visit may appear thinner than usual. It compressed WIRED’s homepage, leaving it looking incredibly nasty.
