OpenAI released its long anticipated AI-powered browser called Atlas, positioning itself to compete directly against Google Chrome, Perplexity Comet, Microsoft Edge, and other AI-infused browsers. Atlas allows ChatGPT to see and analyze what's on your screen, while an “agent mode” can navigate the web and perform certain tasks for you.
Atlas is built using Chromium, an open-source browser project managed by Google that provides the codebase for Chrome, Opera, and other browsers, and is currently only available for MacOS — a slap in the face to Microsoft, one of OpenAI's biggest investors and supporters, if you ask me!
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called the launch a “rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one.”
Here's what Atlas offers:
- ChatGPT sidebar on any page – Summarize long articles, compare products, or extract key points from any webpage without leaving the tab. For example, you can highlight a review roundup and ask Atlas to produce a pros and cons list.
- Ask or Search from the Same Bar – Enter a question or URL in the main input area to get both AI-generated and traditional search results including text, images, videos, news. Atlas doesn't have a traditional address bar; everything is powered by the ChatGPT-looking input field.
- Agent Mode for task completion – For premium users, Atlas can interact with websites on your behalf — opening tabs, clicking buttons, filling forms, and completing workflows. It can also carry out multi-step tasks like itinerary planning or shopping comparisons. For example, you can ask Atlas to “find my recipe ingredients, add them to Instacart, and place the order.”
- Agent User Control and Safety Prompts – Atlas pauses and requests confirmation before acting on sensitive sites (like financial or medical pages).
- Browser Memories – Atlas can remember context from sites you visit and recall them later. For example, you can ask Atlas to “summarize the apartments I looked at last week.” OpenAI says you have “full memory control” and can view, archive, or delete the browser memories or clear your history anytime.
- Site-by-Site Visibility Toggle – You can choose whether ChatGPT can “see” the current page. When visibility is off, it can’t read or create memories from that site. Kind of like an Incognito mode for when you're viewing your digital dirty magazines.
- Smart Suggestions – Based on your past browsing, Atlas surfaces next steps such as returning to pages, continuing a search, or finishing tasks.
- Interactive Cursor Tools – Highlight text in emails, docs, or web pages to rewrite, summarize, or clarify with ChatGPT in one click.
- Privacy & Control – OpenAI says that the web content you browse is not used to train OpenAI models unless you explicitly opt-in.
- Parent Controls – Parents can disable Agent Mode or browser memories for child accounts. What parents are letting their kids use Atlas yet?
- Also Basic Browser Features – Supports tabs, bookmarks, autocomplete, saved passwords, history import, and dark mode. Or is Chromium doing all the heavy lifting for that stuff?
What are people saying about Atlas?
- Wired called the Ask ChatGPT sidebar “moderately helpful at best,” and at times “confusingly wrong.”
- The Washington Post warned that users should be mindful of how ChatGPT can store “memories” of online activity.
- TechRadar brought attention to expert warnings about indirect prompt injection risks, advising users to be careful about confirming sensitive actions.
- Tom’s Guide praised Atlas for novel features like its unobtrusive sidebar, full-side scrollable tabs, and prominent display of URL, but noted missing Chrome features such as the ability to seamlessly switch between Google accounts.
- BBC commented that although the browser is free, it will “only work to its full capacity if you pay a subscription fee.” So more like freemium.
- Tech writer Anil Dash criticized Atlas for not actually taking visitors to the real web at times, but instead displaying results that look “closer to a last-minute book report written by a kid who had mostly plagiarized Wikipedia.” He also says that while OpenAI describes the browser as being your agent, in reality “you are the agent for ChatGPT.” He says that by giving Atlas permission to look over your shoulder, “OpenAI can suddenly access all kinds of things on the internet that they could never get to on their own.”
