Not my kind of web browser

Yesterday, OpenAI unveiled Atlas, their new app, which is, in a nutshell, a Chromium-based browser that integrates ChatGPT and connects web pages and the A.I. in all kinds of smart ways. Atlas is not the first browser like this, as some users have had access to The Browser Company’s Dia and Perplexity’s Comet for a while now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthropic released their own browser in the coming weeks, just like I wouldn’t be surprised if Google made their next big version of Chrome include Gemini in the same manner as its A.I. and now browser competitors.

At this point, I’d be way more surprised — and pleased — if Anthropic used anything other than Chromium for their potential browser; I’d say no chance from a company building its MacOS app on Electron, but this is a story/rant for another day.

Before talking about this new browser, I want to spend a few moments on the announcement video. I’ve talked about this before, but I guess that my job, working in “brand content,” spoils a lot of these for me as I can’t help but critique.

First things first: what’s up with the greyish, bland sweaters everywhere?¹ Are nice shirts or polo shirts forbidden at OpenAI? Is California chilly this time of the year? Sure, this video is not meant to be fun, and I know they want to convey the image of smart nerds focusing on work and not style, but come on, make an effort for the video, show the world you earn a lot of money working for a cool company “building the future.”

Also, OpenAI, this is 2025, not 1970: what about someone in the first group of four people who is not an average white male? What about not having seven men present out of seven presenters? What about a more dynamic format? What about not sitting on a shitty couch to demo an app on a computer? Is this really a video from a company worth billions? My local wine shop does better than this.

So many things in this video are a head-scratcher to me. And yes, I’ve seen the “Update Now” button on top of the window and I want to scream: “Why don’t you update your brand new browser before recording the demo video for it, you idiots?”

Second, am I the only one feeling underwhelmed by all this? I mean, besides everyone appearing in the video?

I won’t get into all the potential privacy and security concerns — which deserve your full attention — but I want to focus on potential use cases.

Nothing in this video made me think: “Oh cool, I need that.” Nothing.² Not even the moment when the guy types the name of a website in a text box, presses enter, and boom, that website appears. Incredible stuff. Maybe I’m not in the target demographic? Maybe I’m already too old? Maybe only people deep in A.I. can appreciate it? Maybe A.I. will indeed see the doom of my expertise and relevance?

I use the ChatGPT app at work, and I actually like having a separate window for all A.I. shenanigans: I can switch apps quickly, I can close it, and I can call it with a keyboard shortcut. Sure, it’s way more limited, and I need to jump from one app to another more often, but I actually see this as a feature.

This is not just about Atlas; I haven’t read about any cool use case of an A.I. browser, whether it is Dia or Comet. Maybe this new browser will change things, maybe it will reach more people and we will see good examples, but so far, it feels like even folks at OpenAI struggled to find compelling use cases. Or maybe I was too bored by the video to pay attention?

Via Techmeme’s neat social media reactions compilation, I’ve seen a few comments saying that the next step for OpenAI is to build an operating system, and potentially a computer. But we already know this: they announced their own device a few months ago and “apps” a few weeks ago, so obviously they are at least considering their own OS. But, if we pretend that they will indeed build an OS, I wonder what will be more successful: a full OS built by an A.I.-company, or an existing OS integrating A.I.? Since recent versions of Windows and Android are already sort of the latter kind, and if this new browser is an indicator of where things are going, I’m not sure what to expect from these companies, at least in the near future.

In the meantime, as a grumpy user, I’m finding comfort in my apps that don’t force-feed me A.I. If the new cool browsers are all like Atlas, I’ve never been so happy to use Safari.