OpenAI introduced its own web browser, Atlas, on Tuesday, putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions.<\/p>\n
Making its popular AI chatbot a gateway to online searches could allow OpenAI, the world’s most valuable startup, to pull in more internet traffic and the revenue made from digital advertising. It could also further cut off the lifeblood of online publishers if ChatGPT so effectively feeds people summarized information that they stop exploring the internet and clicking on traditional web links.<\/p>\n
OpenAI has said ChatGPT already has more than 800 million users but many of them get it for free. The San Francisco-based company also sells paid subscriptions but is losing more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit.<\/p>\n
OpenAI said Atlas launches Tuesday on Apple laptops and will later come to Microsoft\u2019s Windows, Apple\u2019s iOS phone operating system and Google\u2019s Android phone system.<\/p>\n
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a \u201crare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one.\u201d<\/p>\n
But analyst Paddy Harrington of market research group Forrester said it will be a big challenge \u201ccompeting with a giant who has ridiculous market share.\u201d <\/p>\n
OpenAI\u2019s browser is coming out just a few months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google\u2019s industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge had required it to be sold to prevent the abuses that resulted in Google\u2019s ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly<\/a>.<\/p>\n But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta last month issued a decision<\/a> that rejected the Chrome sale sought by the U.S. Justice Department in the monopoly case, partly because he believed advances in the AI industry already are reshaping the competitive landscape.<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s browser will face a daunting challenge against Chrome, which has amassed about 3 billion worldwide users and has been adding some AI features from Google\u2019s Gemini technology.<\/a><\/p>\n Chrome\u2019s immense success could provide a blueprint for OpenAI as it enters the browser market. When Google released Chrome in 2008, Microsoft\u2019s Internet Explorer was so dominant that few observers believed a new browser could mount a formidable threat.<\/p>\n But Chrome quickly won over legions of admirers by loading webpages more quickly than Internet Explorer while offering other advantages that enabled it to upend the market. Microsoft ended up abandoning Explorer and introducing its Edge browser, which operates similarly to Chrome and holds a distant third place in market share behind Apple’s Safari.<\/p>\n Perplexity, another smaller AI startup, rolled out its own Comet browser earlier this year. It also expressed interest in buying Chrome and eventually submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer for the browser that hit a dead end when Mehta decided against a Google breakup.<\/p>\n Altman said he expects a chatbot interface to replace a traditional browser\u2019s URL bar as the center of how he hopes people will use the internet in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cTabs were great, but we haven\u2019t seen a lot of browser innovation since then,\u201d he said on a video presentation aired Tuesday.<\/p>\n A premium feature of the ChatGPT Atlas browser is an \u201cagent mode\u201d that accesses the laptop and effectively clicks around the internet on the person\u2019s behalf, armed with a users\u2019 browser history and what they are seeking to learn and explaining its process as it searches.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s using the internet for you,\u201d Altman said.<\/p>\n Harrington, the Forrester analyst, says another way of thinking about that is it’s \u201ctaking personality away from you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour profile will be personally attuned to you based on all the information sucked up about you. OK, scary,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cBut is it really you, really what you’re thinking, or what that engine decides it’s going to do? … And will it add in preferred solutions based on ads?\u201d <\/p>\n About 60% of Americans<\/a> overall \u2014 and 74% of those under 30 \u2014 use AI to find information at least some of the time, making online searches one of the most popular uses of AI technology, according to findings from an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a> poll taken over the summer.<\/p>\n