OpenAI on Tuesday unveiled a free web browser that is designed to work closely with the company’s artificial intelligence technologies, including the chatbot ChatGPT.
The new browser, called Atlas, is a direct challenge to tech giants like Google, Apple and Microsoft, whose browsers have long dominated the internet.
If OpenAI can attract internet users to its new browser, it can push them toward its own online services and more easily gather data that can be used to improve its A.I. technologies.
“This is an A.I.-powered web browser built around ChatGPT,” OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, said during a livestream introducing the new product. “We think that A.I. represents a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about.”
Another well-known A.I. start-up, Perplexity, recently released a browser, called Comet, for similar reasons.
Both OpenAI and Perplexity offer A.I. technologies designed to replace popular internet search engines from Google and Microsoft. By integrating these technologies with their own web browsers, these start-ups can potentially level the playing field as they compete with the giants of the industry.
OpenAI’s new browser is available only for computers that run Apple’s MacOS operating system. The company plans to introduce a version for Microsoft Windows and mobile operating systems including Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS
During the livestream presentation, Mr. Altman and his OpenAI colleagues showed how the new browser dovetails with ChatGPT. When users open up a new browser “tab,” they are taken directly to the chatbot, where they can start asking questions.
Their hope is that ChatGPT — rather than a traditional address bar or internet search box — will serve as their portal to the internet. “The way that we hope people will use the internet in the future — and that we’re starting to see — is the chat experience,” Mr. Altman said.
The browser does not include a traditional address bar. To visit a website, users must typethe address into ChatGPT’s chat window. This essentially removes competing search engines from the process. It also allows OpenAI to directly gather user data that can train future A.I. technologies.
Google did something similar more than a decade ago when it introduced its web browser, Chrome. It integrated the browser with its search engine, so that users were less likely to use browsers from competitors.
Mr. Altman and his colleagues also demonstrated what the company calls the browser’s “agent mode,” which is designed to perform internet tasks on behalf of the user. It can, for example, use online applications like word processors or grocery shopping sites.
Agent mode is still experimental and is only available to users who pay a monthly fee for the Plus and Pro versions of ChatGPT.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)
Cade Metz is a Times reporter who writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology.
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