OpenAI launches its own web browser to challenge Google Chrome
OpenAI said Tuesday it is introducing its own web browser, Atlas, putting the ChatGate maker in direct competition with Google as more Internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions.
Making itself the gateway to online searches could allow OpenAI, the world’s most valuable startup, to capture more Internet traffic and revenue from digital advertising.
OpenAI states that ChatGPT already has more than 800 million users but many of them get it for free. The San Francisco-based company is losing more than its income and is looking for ways to turn a profit.
OpenAI and other big tech companies are launching the next wave of artificial intelligence, designed to operate with greater autonomy. CBC’s Nora Young explains how agentic AI works and why some people think it will change the way you use the Internet.
OpenAI said Atlas will launch Tuesday on Apple laptops running macOS and will later come to Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s iOS phone operating system and Google’s Android phone system.
OpenAI’s browser is coming just months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google’s industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge required it to be sold to prevent abuses that resulted in Google’s ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly.
But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta issued a ruling last month rejecting the Chrome sale sought by the U.S. Justice Department in an antitrust case, because he believed advances in the AI ​​industry were already reshaping the competitive landscape.
a tough challenge
OpenAI’s browser will face a tough challenge against Chrome, which has nearly three billion users worldwide and is adding some AI features from Google’s Gemini technology.
Chrome’s runaway success could provide a blueprint for OpenAI as it enters the browser market. When Google released Chrome in 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was so dominant that some observers believed a new browser could pose a formidable threat.
But Chrome won a large number of fans by loading webpages more quickly than Internet Explorer, while also offering other advantages that enabled it to gain the lead in the market. Microsoft eventually abandoned Explorer and introduced its Edge browser, which works very similarly to Chrome.
Another small AI startup, Perplexity, launched its own Comet browser earlier this year. It also expressed interest in buying Chrome and eventually submitted an unsolicited offer of $34.5 billion for the browser, which was closed when Mehta decided against a Google breakup.
