At least twice a year, I’ll download a new browser, open it up, and see if the web looks better through a different window. It never does — or at least it didn’t until recently.
We’ve entered a new era of AI-powered browsers. They have names like Comet, Dia, and Neon, and they all make the same promise: to do things for you on the web.
The web is broken, increasingly full of AI slop, and surfing it sucks. Maybe AI agents should do the searching, clicking, and thinking instead? Or at least, maybe they can speed things up. That might mean summarizing a news article, filling out a form, or buying your groceries. ChatGPT Atlas, which OpenAI launched on Tuesday, operates as a search engine of sorts, replacing the ubiquitous Google Search bar at the top with a ChatGPT prompt box. Even Google Chrome offers Gemini as a sidekick that will follow you around the web and explain things to you, like Clippy but less annoying.
If you can get past the irony of AI agents swimming through AI slop, the sales pitch for this new take on web browsers is enticing. So far, as with AI in general, the promises don’t quite match the reality of the software. I’ve tried the agentic AI features in all of these new browsers, and none can do things any faster or better than I can with eyeballs and fingertips.
Nevertheless, I can see the vague outlines of a better web through these browser windows, one that’s more natural to use and less littered with popups and garbage. I can see something that looks a bit like Google Chrome the first time I used it nearly 20 years ago.
What it’s like to surf with AI
The experience of using these AI-first browsers is quite similar — both to each other and to existing browsers. They also look a lot like Chrome on the outside, since most of them are built on the Chromium platform, the open-source project founded by Google. What’s different, however, is the generative AI chatbot bolted on the side.
You can ask the chatbot questions about what’s on the page at any given time, including calendars and emails. They can draft text for you or gather information, all the while learning about your interests. There are generally free versions of these browsers and paid ones. Basic features, like the ability to summarize a webpage, are largely available for free. In order to get access to agentic AI features and more memory, you’ll have to spend $20 a month to upgrade to pro accounts for ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity, which makes Comet. (Neon, by Opera, is also $20 and currently invite-only, and Dia doesn’t have agents yet.)