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Key Takeaways
- OpenAI launched its AI-powered Atlas browser, which comes with ChatGPT built in, to macOS users Tuesday, with plans to roll it out to Windows, Android, and iOS users soon.
- The browser could challenge existing search leaders such as Google, which has already acknowledged OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a competitive threat.
AI startup OpenAI is coming for Google’s Chrome.
The ChatGPT maker and world’s most valuable private startup launched its highly anticipated AI-driven browser Tuesday, in a move that could challenge leading browsers like Google’s (GOOGL) Chrome.
The new browser, Atlas, comes with the company’s flagship chatbot ChatGPT built in, eliminating the need to copy and paste resources from the web into conversations in a separate app, according to OpenAI.
Atlas can also perform tasks in “agent mode,” like planning events or booking appointments, OpenAI said, though that is only available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users for now, CEO Sam Altman said during a livestream.
OpenAI
The browser is available for Apple macOS users as of Tuesday, with the AI startup promising to roll out Windows, Android, and iOS soon.
Why This Is Significant
Tuesday’s release underscores OpenAI’s potential to disrupt the dominance of older big tech giants such as Google, with rapidly growing popularity and influence since the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022.
The move brings OpenAI’s offerings more directly in competition with Google, which has already acknowledged OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a threat. While other companies, including Microsoft, have browsers too, Google’s is by far the most popular, capturing over 60% browser share by some estimates.
In a high-profile decision last month, a judge who ruled a year ago that Google operated a monopoly in search, decided against forcing the tech giant to sell Chrome, in part because of the rapid rise of AI and the threat newer companies in the space like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity pose to its dominance.
Meanwhile, Google has been hustling to augment its Chrome with AI features that will help it keep users amid widespread expectations that OpenAI would launch an AI-powered browser. Google rolled out its own Gemini chatbot in Chrome last month for Mac and Windows desktop users in the U.S.
Shares of Google were down about 2% in recent trading following the announcement from OpenAI. They’ve added about a third of their value in 2025, thanks in part to strong demand for its cloud services to support AI.
