OpenAI looks for its “Google Chrome” moment with Atlas to challenge Google’s monopoly

OpenAI has taken a bold step in the browser wars with the launch of its new artificial intelligence-powered tool: ChatGPT Atlas. This launch, aiming for its own “Google Chrome moment”, has the stated goal of fundamentally changing how consumers browse the web and challenging Chrome’s long-standing dominance.

Launch and Strategic Vision

The official announcement, titled “Introducing ChatGPT Atlas, the browser with ChatGPT built in”, was made in a live stream demonstration, revealing that the browser is globally available for macOS starting October 21, 2025. OpenAI CEO and founder, Sam Altman, promised that versions for Windows, iOS, and Android would be released “as quick as we can” or are “coming soon”. Altman emphasized that the chat experience and a web browser can be a “great analogue” for how they expect people to use the Internet in the future. According to company employees on the livestream, ChatGPT is the “beating heart of Atlas”.

OpenAI’s intention is clear: to offer a browser that transcends traditional functionality. Experts suggest that the browser’s launch could exert “significant pressure on Google Chrome” and potentially “fundamentally change how consumers browse the web”. Altman even pitched Atlas as ending Google Chrome’s “17-year monopoly,” claiming “we haven’t seen a lot of browser innovation since then”.

AI Integration and User Experience

The Atlas user interface reflects the simplicity expected in modern browsers, including tabs, bookmarks, and auto-fill. However, the central search field in a new tab prompts users to “Ask ChatGPT or type a URL”.

One of the features most valued by employees is the browser’s memory, which makes the browser “more personalized and more helpful to you”. Users can manage these “memories” in the settings and can also opt to use incognito windows for browsing they don’t want the Large Language Model (LLM) to remember. The LLM integration allows users to search through their bookmarks or browsing history using natural language prompts (human-parsable language).

The chat functionality is ubiquitous. Users can interact with a “side chat” next to the active page, allowing them to ask questions that rely on the context of that specific page. Furthermore, Atlas introduces the “cursor chat” feature, enabling users to edit text directly in-line, for example, by selecting text in a Gmail draft and clicking a button to have ChatGPT “tidy up the sentence”.

The default search experience on Atlas, when a short prompt is used, replies as an LLM, offering written answers with embedded links to sourcing where appropriate. Nevertheless, the browser also provides tabs with more traditional lists of links, images, videos, or news, similar to those retrieved from a search engine without LLM features.

Agent Mode: The Distinctive Feature

The star feature of Atlas, designed to differentiate it from the competition, is the Agent Mode. Although Altman mentioned the “agent mode” and earlier versions of this technology were called Operator or ChatGPT Agent, this mode allows ChatGPT to “carry out tasks on behalf of the user”. This could include “booking reservations or filling out forms”.

This advanced functionality, announced as a “preview mode”, is available only to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers. Research lead Will Ellsworth demonstrated that Agent Mode can perform complex, multi-application tasks. For instance, it can take planning tasks written in a Google Docs table and move them to the task management software Linear. It was also shown taking the ingredient list from a recipe webpage and adding those items directly to a user’s Instacart cart in a different tab.

Agent Mode operates as if it were a human user, with full access to that user’s authentication and browsing history. Users retain full control: they can watch Agent Mode as it clicks through various tabs and webpages, taking over at any time, or allow it to operate in the background without oversight. OpenAI specified that Agent Mode can only operate inside web tabs and cannot execute code outside of the browser.

The Chromium Controversy and the Data Goldmine

Despite CEO Sam Altman promoting Atlas with the goal of ending Google Chrome’s “17-year monopoly”, a crucial and less publicized detail is that Atlas is built using Google’s open-source Chromium technology. This same technology is the foundation of Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and many other popular browsers.

The fact that Atlas is built on Chromium was conspicuously avoided during the launch livestream. This dependency only surfaced through a support page “buried on OpenAI’s website,” which states: “Atlas is OpenAI’s Mac browser built on Chromium”. Reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong independently confirmed this architecture. This reliance means Atlas joins an “increasingly crowded field” of AI-enhanced browsers (like Perplexity’s Comet) that rely on the same Google-created base architecture. Observers note the irony that OpenAI’s supposedly “revolutionary” browser fundamentally relies on the technology of its main competitor, meaning OpenAI has simply added another AI layer to the existing Google ecosystem. Users have already discovered they can install standard Chrome extensions, further confirming the familiar underlying architecture.

The other major point of contention is the motive behind the browser’s launch: user data. Reuters suggests that running its own browser would give OpenAI direct, powerful access to “harvest as much information as possible from users”. This data is valuable for training its AI models and providing other monetization opportunities. Consequently, concerns over privacy have generated “alarm bells”, as the incentive for launching the browser might be the possibility of “scooping up users’ private data”. This access to lucrative data is similar to how Chrome provides user information to Alphabet to target ads more effectively and profitably.

Competitive Landscape

Atlas is not the only player in this space, as the “browser wars” are heating up. OpenAI faces stiff competition, not only from Google (which maintains roughly two-thirds of the available market share and plans to integrate “Agentic features” of Gemini into Chrome in the coming months), but also from rivals like Perplexity with its Comet browser, Brave, and The Browser Company. Microsoft has also been integrating AI features with Copilot into its Edge browser. In a move demonstrating the sector’s ambition, Perplexity recently made a bold $34.5 billion bid for Chrome. OpenAI itself had publicly expressed interest in buying Chrome back in April, although the sale seems unlikely in the near term due to ongoing antitrust legal issues.

The key remaining question is whether ChatGPT’s more than 700 million weekly active users will be willing to abandon their current browsers in favor of Atlas, which, while offering a “more personalized” experience and the transformative potential of Agent Mode, raises serious concerns over data privacy and relies fundamentally on Google’s technology.

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