Back in 2008, Google launched the Chrome browser to help better integrate its industry-leading search engine into the web-browsing experience. Today, OpenAI announced the Atlas browser that it hopes will do something similar for its ChatGPT Large Language Model, answering the question “What if I could chat with a browser?” as the OpenAI team put it.
OpenAI Founder and CEO Sam Altman said in a livestreamed announcement that Atlas will let users “chat with a page,” helping ChatGPT become a core way that users interact with the place where “a ton of work and life happens” online. “The way that we hope people will use the Internet in the future… is that the chat experience and a web browser can be a great analogue,” he said.
The new browser is available for download now on MacOS, and Altman promised Windows and mobile versions would be rolled out “as quick as we can.”
An LLM that follows you
The home screen of a new Atlas tab mirrors the simplicity of the Chrome search box, with a text field prompting users to “Ask ChatGPT or type a URL.” Users can access their chat history or different ChatGPT models using an interface similar to that on ChatGPT.com. The Atlas browser will also populate suggestions below that search box, which could range from links to news stories to suggestions for tasks the browser can perform for you.
During the livestream, the OpenAI team said that Atlas has features that web users have come to expect from a browser: tabs, bookmarks, and auto-fill among them. But the integration with ChatGPT now means that “chat comes with you everywhere” in the browsing experience.