OpenAI launched an AI-powered web browser called ChatGPT Atlas this week, which makes me wonder: Is it finally time to ditch Safari?
That news was on our minds as Max Zeff, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed the browser landscape — including some lesser-known alternatives — on the latest episode of the Equity podcast. But it doesn’t sound like any of us will be making a big switch soon.
For one thing, Sean noted many companies have tried and ultimately failed to unseat the major browsers due to their inability to make money on the browser alone. Of course, that’s less likely to be a problem for OpenAI, with its increasingly massive funding rounds.
Max, meanwhile, has actually tried out Atlas and other browsers that promise AI agents will do the work for you, and he said there’s a “slight efficiency gain” at best. At other times, you end up watching the agent “click around on a website” — is that something normal users are really crying out for? Plus, there are significant security risks
Read a preview of our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.
Anthony: I’m still on Safari, but as far as the search engine, which is tied to browsers, I’ve actually been trying to experiment with non-Google [options,] because I’m just tired of seeing all the genAI stuff at the top of my search results.
I think also there’s this question of: If these AI browsers take off, what does that mean for the idea of the open web in general? You can still go to web pages, but I don’t think it would be crazy to suggest that a website is just going to become less and less important as more and more of our browsing is controlled by these AI interfaces and chatbots.
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Max: I think that this has been a big idea that people talk about a lot: What does the agentic web look like? And I think it is a fascinating question. People have tried to come up with all these solutions to work toward this future that [they] feel is coming.
And I think that there is a certain aspect of it that reminds me of previous tech waves where i …