Who are AI browsers for?

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 when 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 anytime soon.

For one thing, Sean noted that many companies have tried and ultimately failed to take down the major browsers due to their inability to make money from 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 Atlas and other browsers that promise AI agents will do the work for you, and he said there’s a “small efficiency gain” at best. At other times, you end up seeing the agent “clicking around a site” – is that something normal users are really clamoring for? In addition, 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 for the search engine attached 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 there’s also 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 becoming less and less important as more and more of our browsing is controlled by these AI interfaces and chatbots.

Max.: I think that’s been a big idea that people are talking about a lot: What does the agent network look like? And I think that’s a fascinating question. People have tried to come up with all these solutions to work towards this future [they] feel coming.

And I think there’s a certain aspect of it that reminds me of previous technology waves where it’s like, “Okay, but what’s the actual experience? What’s the value to a consumer of using one of these tools?”

And it’s just not super convincing today. I’ve tried ChatGPT Atlas and I’ve tried Comet, and the most generous assessment of them is that it’s a small efficiency gain. It makes you a little more efficient.

But most of the time I’ve tried these things, you slowly see it clicking around a site, doing a task that I’d probably never do in the real world. I wanted it to be like looking up a recipe and adding all the ingredients to Instacart. I have never done that. I think all the tech bros always say that example in the videos and I’m like, “I don’t know if people do that much.”

This is just this huge gap in the tech industry right now [saying]”We’re building all these tools for the agent network,” but why would a normal person use this? And I don’t know.

Sean: I haven’t used any of them [AI browsers] but that’s largely because I’m still an old head when it comes to searching and browsing in general – a lot of the work I do involves looking for documents, which just naturally involves looking through various discrete parts of web pages that I’m familiar with, lots of Boolean searches on Google. Maybe I’ll try these one day if Google really gives up and kills Boolean search, which it feels like it’s coming at some point, but it’s not there yet.

What’s interesting to me about these AI browsers is that we’ve seen other companies try to compete in the browser space and they always lose because it’s just impossible to monetize a browser as a product. And some have tried to charge upfront for it, they can get by for a while, but it’s just ultimately not sustainable in terms of competing against Safari or Chrome or Firefox, for that matter.

What’s interesting to me … is that you finally have these companies that just have infinite money, so they can ride out as long as they want because they’re not actually trying to make money on these things yet. Eventually they probably will, but OpenAI doesn’t have to monetize this thing in the next year or two, they can just have it out there and let it take shape.