ChatGPT Atlas is live! OpenAI launches a heavyweight AI browser, ushering the Internet into the era of AI.

The leader in AI applications, OpenAI, has released its first AI-driven "AI web browser", marking the most significant product of the internet era and also the entrance for users to experience the internet - the browser, becoming inseparable from AI. The deep integration of browsers with AI will become the core direction of browser technology iteration. This move pits the developer of ChatGPT, valued at a staggering $500 billion, against the leaders in AI and search engine field, Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US), in a new round of intense competition. Named ChatGPT Atlas, this AI browser is designed to provide a more personalized internet experience and can handle tasks such as booking flights, editing documents on behalf of users. Whenever a user visits a website in the browser, they will see an option to "Ask ChatGPT". Clicking on it will bring up a sidebar for deep AI interactions with the page content. For example, users can open a long movie review and have ChatGPT summarize it for them; or find a recipe and have ChatGPT help with ordering the ingredients online according to their personal taste. "This is a browser completely driven by AI built around ChatGPT," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a live event on Tuesday. He emphasized that AI represents a rare and groundbreaking technological opportunity that happens once a decade, allowing people to rethink how browsers are used. The company stated that ChatGPT Atlas will initially launch on macOS globally, with plans to quickly expand to Windows, iOS, and Android systems soon. Advanced and complex AI intelligence features are currently only available to paying users of ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro. In the "AI intelligence mode," ChatGPT can perform any complex operation for users, even directly opening a Python platform for deep programming work, opening windows for complex operations such as simulation and simulation, and performing proxy operations. In the live event, the head of ChatGPT Atlas indicated that browsers in the internet era have completely changed how people work, and now he believes the emergence of ChatGPT is also a kind of technological revolution similar to the human one. OpenAI has entered the ranks of AI startups that are reimagining web browsers using AI. This AI-driven browser product is a significant landmark of the internet era, tracing back to the 1990s. Alphabet Inc. Class C's another major search engine competitor, Perplexity AI Inc., a fellow AI startup, recently launched Comet, an AI web browser designed to serve as a digital private assistant and automate tedious tasks for users. Additionally, Opera and The Browser Company are also planning to integrate more powerful AI features into their browsers. Alphabet Inc. Class C once again feels the pressure brought by OpenAI Following the news of OpenAI's launch of an AI web browser, Alphabet Inc. Class C's stock price fell by as much as 4.8% during Tuesday's market trading session. Earlier in September, Alphabet Inc. Class C had integrated its Gemini AI large model into its Chrome search browser. Besides regular search tasks, Alphabet Inc. Class C's AI can respond to any request, provide in-depth explanations of visited web pages, distill information across multiple tabs, and quickly retrieve previously closed websites. This move by Alphabet Inc. Class C comes just two weeks after a US judge ruled against a government proposal to force the company to divest from the Chrome browser. During a court hearing, executives from Perplexity and OpenAI indicated that if Alphabet Inc. Class C were required to divest, they would be interested in acquiring the Chrome browser business. Recent reports show that Anthropic, an AI startup known as the "rival of OpenAI," is in negotiations with Alphabet Inc. Class C for a cloud service agreement valued at billions of dollars. This potential deal would provide massive computing support for Claude, a product launched by Anthropic. This deal will undoubtedly strengthen the long-term partnership between Alphabet Inc. Class C and Anthropic. Prior to this, Alphabet Inc. Class C had invested about $3 billion in Anthropic and provided traditional cloud computing and cloud AI resources. Anthropic's main investors also include Amazon.com, Inc., which provides cloud computing resources for the AI startup. Browsers transitioning from the internet era to the artificial intelligence era The successful launch of ChatGPT Atlas by OpenAI has realized the integration of the "Ask ChatGPT" sidebar with proxy operations (such as booking tickets, editing documents, completing multi-step tasks) as a top feature of the browser. It has been globally launched on macOS, with plans to expand to Windows, iOS, and Android, marking the transition of browsers from the internet era to the "AI-native era." In the "AI-native era," AI applications are no longer plugins or malicious add-ons but default sidebars accompanying every web page and user action, allowing users to make browsers "understand and take action." This is the leap from an "information window" to an "action workstation." Not only OpenAI is embedding generative AI applications and AI intelligences into browsers, but Alphabet Inc. Class C is also focusing on deep embedding the Gemini AI model system into the Chrome browser platform, such as in-page explanations, cross-tab refinement, finding closed websites quickly, and summarizing pages in one key on Android. Various AI startups focusing on "AI+search", such as Perplexity, Opera, etc., continue to update and iterate, attempting to turn web browsers into personalized AI assistants/agents. The emergence of Atlas undoubtedly makes this trend of AI browsers more mainstream and systematic.