Earlier this week, OpenAI unveiled an AI browser, dubbed Atlas, which is built around its blockbuster AI product, ChatGPT.
“A browser built with ChatGPT takes us closer to a true super-assistant that understands your world and helps you achieve your goals,” the company boasted in its announcement.
Thanks to an “agent mode,” the browser can complete entire tasks, such as booking flights or buying groceries online, a process OpenAI engineers quickly dubbed “vibe lifing.”
It’s not the first time an AI company has attempted to shoehorn AI chatbot functionality into a web browser. Atlas joins the likes of AI startup Perplexity’s Comet and Google’s AI model Gemini, which it’s baked into its ever-popular Chrome browser.
But given early adopters’ experience with the new tool so far, OpenAI has its work cut out to justify the existence of its newfangled browser — and that’s not to mention the glaring cybersecurity concerns experts have highlighted.
And for a company that’s planning to spend over $1 trillion in the next year to build out enormous data centers to support its AI operations, it’s not exactly a confidence-inducing product launch. As The Verge reports, Atlas’ functionality leaves a lot to be desired.
“The immediately obvious problem is that ChatGPT simply doesn’t feel like an adequate portal to the web,” wrote the site’s Emma Roth, who took the browser for an early spin.
For one thing, ChatGPT’s suggestions “aren’t always relevant.” Roth recounts being provided several search results, including local news that weren’t actually local to her.
OpenAI appears to be aware of how confined this basic functionality is — by making it easy for users to revert to a far more familiar method of searching the web.
“The limited search experience is probably why ChatGPT Atlas includes a link to Google in the top-right corner of each search results page,” Roth quipped.
... continue reading