OpenAI is discontinuing Atlas, the AI-powered browser released in October with ChatGPT at its core. But the company hasn’t given up on the idea that AI should help people browse the web. Instead, we’re taking some of the agent browsing features we tested in Atlas and redistributing them into ChatGPT’s desktop app and Google Chrome extension.
The move to shut down Atlas comes months after OpenAI’s applications CEO Fiji Simo told his team to cut back on “side quests,” which led to the AI company shutting down its AI video generation tool Sora.
For much of the past year, the AI industry has been waging a war to dethrone Chrome as the place people spend most of their time online. Perplexity launched Comet, The Browser Company launched Dia, and Google and Microsoft updated Chrome and Edge, respectively, and added new AI-powered features.
After months of experimentation, OpenAI appears to have come to the conclusion that the browser is a feature, not a destination. This means bringing Atlas’ browser-like agent functionality right where your users are already working. This includes Chrome.
OpenAI is releasing a ChatGPT extension on Chrome. This gives you access to the context of the page you’re viewing, allowing you to ask questions about a web page, summarize the content, and start long tasks all from the browser. This is a direct competitor to Google’s Gemini Side Panel, which performs some of the same tasks.
OpenAI is also enhancing the ChatGPT desktop app with a more robust browser that allows users to browse websites, log into accounts, download files, and interact with web pages without leaving ChatGPT. A separate cloud browser runs remotely on OpenAI’s servers, where your app’s agents can complete tasks on your behalf.
These updates transform ChatGPT into a continuous workspace that spans Chrome, desktop apps, and AI agents.
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