In a bid to seize much more eyeballs, OpenAI has lastly launched Atlas, its long-teased, ChatGPT-powered net browser. Browsing the net could by no means be the identical now {that a} bot is doing it for you – whereas coaching itself on the similar time.
Launched on Tuesday for macOS, OpenAI’s Atlas provides the power to direct ChatGPT through textual content or voice to work together with net content material and to navigate by means of web sites. (Atlas for Android, iOS, and Home windows is predicted quickly.) In a livestream presentation, OpenAI CEO and AI hypemaster Sam Altman stated that Atlas represents a possibility to “rethink what a browser might be about.” On this case, “rethink” means permitting ChatGPT to watch, mediate, and direct shopping periods.
“With Atlas, ChatGPT can include you anyplace throughout the net – serving to you within the window proper the place you’re, understanding what you are attempting to do, and finishing duties for you, all with out copying and pasting or leaving the web page,” OpenAI enthused in a weblog put up. “Your ChatGPT reminiscence is in-built, so conversations can draw on previous chats and particulars that can assist you get new issues accomplished.”
As described within the launch notes, Atlas makes ChatGPT accessible in a sidebar to investigate or summarize webpage content material. ChatGPT will also be invoked from inside kind fields loaded in an Atlas-rendered web page. Customers have the choice to allow browser reminiscences – previous shopping historical past – and to disclaim ChatGPT entry to particular websites.
Plus, Professional, and Enterprise customers have entry to agent mode, which allows Atlas to carry out extra sophisticated multi-step features.
“In agent mode, ChatGPT can full finish to finish duties for you want researching a meal plan, making a listing of components, and including the groceries to a buying cart prepared for supply,” the discharge notes clarify, including that ChatGPT will ask earlier than taking vital actions and might be interrupted. This can be a affordable try to stop the AI mannequin from unintentionally buying two tons of creamed corn and making different sudden selections.
As with rival Perplexity’s Comet browser, which debuted in July, OpenAI’s hope is that net customers will delegate their interactions with web sites to AI brokers that act on their behalf, even making purchases. However OpenAI additionally needs to make sure that ChatGPT, the massive behemoth of bots, has entry to the biggest attainable viewers.
Browsers symbolize the first shopper entry level for the net, and browser makers like Google and Microsoft have been integrating favored AI companies to advertise utilization. Google has constructed Gemini into Chrome whereas Microsoft has built-in Copilot with Edge.
Smaller browser firms like Courageous and Opera have taken comparable steps, whereas Mozilla is providing a alternative of AI fashions in Firefox. Solely Vivaldi has avoided bot bombing its clients.
It is not apparent that Atlas will do a lot to alter AI market share. As famous in VC agency Menlo Ventures’ State of Shopper AI Report 2025, “A few quarter of Individuals report utilizing ChatGPT (28 p.c) or Google Gemini (23 p.c) prior to now six months, indicating that shopper adoption right this moment is basically pushed by embedded merchandise with present distribution.”
It is onerous to get folks to alter their habits.
Proudly owning a browser may additionally show helpful for OpenAI if it chooses to enter the net advert enterprise – a state of affairs that Altman beforehand dismissed and now seems extra possible. With OpenAI dropping cash at such a fast price, count on that advert income will get a critical look.
As a browser, Atlas has just a few quirks. It provides Developer Instruments through the View menu, however they cannot be opened on a New Tab web page – presumably as a result of the default ChatGPT enter field will not be structured as an online web page. And in the event you attempt to do away with the steered prompts that load in a New Tab window, the strategies reappear upon reload.
Atlas is predicated on Google’s Chromium open supply challenge and it does assist Chrome extensions. Not like Google’s personal Chrome browser, which (for now) provides a approach to disable AI Mode through chrome://flags, there isn’t any atlas://flags settings web page to show off ChatGPT. However then that could be the purpose.
OpenAI very a lot needs folks to set Atlas as their default browser and has gone as far as to supply elevated ChatGPT utilization limits for individuals who hold Atlas set because the default for seven consecutive calendar days.
All of your shopping knowledge are belong to us
The discharge notes embrace a piece titled “Privateness and knowledge controls,” which is noteworthy, as a result of at launch there isn’t any Privateness menu within the Atlas settings.
The discharge notes additionally declare that “By default, we do not use the content material you browse to coach our fashions.”
That was not this reporter’s expertise – upon putting in and opening Atlas for the primary time, the menu Information Controls -> Mannequin enchancment defaulted to “On.”
Screenshot of Atlas defaulting to sharing knowledge for AI coaching – Click on to enlarge
“On” means “Permit your content material for use to coach our fashions, which makes ChatGPT higher for everybody who makes use of it. We take steps to guard your privateness. Be taught extra.”
It is maybe price noting that the assertion “We take steps to guard your privateness” rivals “Safety, we have heard of it” and “Your name is essential to us” as imprecise, non-binding commitments.
Nonetheless, OpenAI acknowledges that there are some potential issues.
“Regardless of the entire energy and superior capabilities that you just get with sharing your browser with ChatGPT, that additionally poses a completely new set of dangers,” stated Pranav Vishnu, product lead for ChatGPT Atlas, through the video presentation.
Vishnu stated that is why Atlas comes with limitations like solely with the ability to function in your tabs and never with the ability to execute code in your pc or entry native recordsdata.
Simon Willison, a widely-followed open supply developer, opined in a weblog put up that he continues to search out browser brokers deeply complicated.
“The safety and privateness dangers concerned right here nonetheless really feel insurmountably excessive to me – I definitely will not be trusting any of those merchandise till a bunch of safety researchers have given them a really thorough beating,” he wrote, including that he additionally finds AI browsers “fairly unexciting to make use of.” ®
In a bid to seize much more eyeballs, OpenAI has lastly launched Atlas, its long-teased, ChatGPT-powered net browser. Browsing the net could by no means be the identical now {that a} bot is doing it for you – whereas coaching itself on the similar time.
Launched on Tuesday for macOS, OpenAI’s Atlas provides the power to direct ChatGPT through textual content or voice to work together with net content material and to navigate by means of web sites. (Atlas for Android, iOS, and Home windows is predicted quickly.) In a livestream presentation, OpenAI CEO and AI hypemaster Sam Altman stated that Atlas represents a possibility to “rethink what a browser might be about.” On this case, “rethink” means permitting ChatGPT to watch, mediate, and direct shopping periods.
“With Atlas, ChatGPT can include you anyplace throughout the net – serving to you within the window proper the place you’re, understanding what you are attempting to do, and finishing duties for you, all with out copying and pasting or leaving the web page,” OpenAI enthused in a weblog put up. “Your ChatGPT reminiscence is in-built, so conversations can draw on previous chats and particulars that can assist you get new issues accomplished.”
As described within the launch notes, Atlas makes ChatGPT accessible in a sidebar to investigate or summarize webpage content material. ChatGPT will also be invoked from inside kind fields loaded in an Atlas-rendered web page. Customers have the choice to allow browser reminiscences – previous shopping historical past – and to disclaim ChatGPT entry to particular websites.
Plus, Professional, and Enterprise customers have entry to agent mode, which allows Atlas to carry out extra sophisticated multi-step features.
“In agent mode, ChatGPT can full finish to finish duties for you want researching a meal plan, making a listing of components, and including the groceries to a buying cart prepared for supply,” the discharge notes clarify, including that ChatGPT will ask earlier than taking vital actions and might be interrupted. This can be a affordable try to stop the AI mannequin from unintentionally buying two tons of creamed corn and making different sudden selections.
As with rival Perplexity’s Comet browser, which debuted in July, OpenAI’s hope is that net customers will delegate their interactions with web sites to AI brokers that act on their behalf, even making purchases. However OpenAI additionally needs to make sure that ChatGPT, the massive behemoth of bots, has entry to the biggest attainable viewers.
Browsers symbolize the first shopper entry level for the net, and browser makers like Google and Microsoft have been integrating favored AI companies to advertise utilization. Google has constructed Gemini into Chrome whereas Microsoft has built-in Copilot with Edge.
Smaller browser firms like Courageous and Opera have taken comparable steps, whereas Mozilla is providing a alternative of AI fashions in Firefox. Solely Vivaldi has avoided bot bombing its clients.
It is not apparent that Atlas will do a lot to alter AI market share. As famous in VC agency Menlo Ventures’ State of Shopper AI Report 2025, “A few quarter of Individuals report utilizing ChatGPT (28 p.c) or Google Gemini (23 p.c) prior to now six months, indicating that shopper adoption right this moment is basically pushed by embedded merchandise with present distribution.”
It is onerous to get folks to alter their habits.
Proudly owning a browser may additionally show helpful for OpenAI if it chooses to enter the net advert enterprise – a state of affairs that Altman beforehand dismissed and now seems extra possible. With OpenAI dropping cash at such a fast price, count on that advert income will get a critical look.
As a browser, Atlas has just a few quirks. It provides Developer Instruments through the View menu, however they cannot be opened on a New Tab web page – presumably as a result of the default ChatGPT enter field will not be structured as an online web page. And in the event you attempt to do away with the steered prompts that load in a New Tab window, the strategies reappear upon reload.
Atlas is predicated on Google’s Chromium open supply challenge and it does assist Chrome extensions. Not like Google’s personal Chrome browser, which (for now) provides a approach to disable AI Mode through chrome://flags, there isn’t any atlas://flags settings web page to show off ChatGPT. However then that could be the purpose.
OpenAI very a lot needs folks to set Atlas as their default browser and has gone as far as to supply elevated ChatGPT utilization limits for individuals who hold Atlas set because the default for seven consecutive calendar days.
All of your shopping knowledge are belong to us
The discharge notes embrace a piece titled “Privateness and knowledge controls,” which is noteworthy, as a result of at launch there isn’t any Privateness menu within the Atlas settings.
The discharge notes additionally declare that “By default, we do not use the content material you browse to coach our fashions.”
That was not this reporter’s expertise – upon putting in and opening Atlas for the primary time, the menu Information Controls -> Mannequin enchancment defaulted to “On.”
Screenshot of Atlas defaulting to sharing knowledge for AI coaching – Click on to enlarge
“On” means “Permit your content material for use to coach our fashions, which makes ChatGPT higher for everybody who makes use of it. We take steps to guard your privateness. Be taught extra.”
It is maybe price noting that the assertion “We take steps to guard your privateness” rivals “Safety, we have heard of it” and “Your name is essential to us” as imprecise, non-binding commitments.
Nonetheless, OpenAI acknowledges that there are some potential issues.
“Regardless of the entire energy and superior capabilities that you just get with sharing your browser with ChatGPT, that additionally poses a completely new set of dangers,” stated Pranav Vishnu, product lead for ChatGPT Atlas, through the video presentation.
Vishnu stated that is why Atlas comes with limitations like solely with the ability to function in your tabs and never with the ability to execute code in your pc or entry native recordsdata.
Simon Willison, a widely-followed open supply developer, opined in a weblog put up that he continues to search out browser brokers deeply complicated.
“The safety and privateness dangers concerned right here nonetheless really feel insurmountably excessive to me – I definitely will not be trusting any of those merchandise till a bunch of safety researchers have given them a really thorough beating,” he wrote, including that he additionally finds AI browsers “fairly unexciting to make use of.” ®
