The World of AI Web Browsers Is Quickly Getting Crowded

“While I write this, an AI agent is working in another browser tab, furiously trying to find me walnuts in their shells. You'd think they'd be everywhere in Northern California -- land of farmers' markets and fancy trail mix -- but nope.

 

On Tuesday, OpenAI released Atlas, its new AI-powered web browser that integrates ChatGPT. Built on Chromium -- the same underlying tech as Google Chrome -- Atlas lets you chat directly with ChatGPT inside the browser.

 

It can summarize the page you're on, explain a concept or, if you have a paid plan, use its agent tools, where it goes off and does things for you on the web.

 

From OpenAI's Atlas and Perplexity's Comet to The Browser Company's Dia and Microsoft's Copilot-powered Edge, the space is already getting crowded.

 

Perplexity's Comet browser was a game changer during my book reporting. I still use Microsoft Edge as my main browser, but launch Comet for specific tasks. Here are three things I regularly use it for:

 

Research: When I need to hunt down expert sources or scan specific websites, I don't manually click around anymore. I ask the AI agent. If I'm logged into LinkedIn, for example, I can have it search the platform for specific types of people. It's like having an AI-powered research assistant embedded in the browser tab.

 

Shopping: One of my favorite uses of Comet is uploading a shopping list and asking it to find everything, then add it to my cart. I've done this for my kids' school supply list and a last-minute Sephora run. It isn't perfect -- it often selects wrong items and can take at least 15 minutes depending on the size of the list -- but it's a good first stab. And again, I'm off doing something else.

 

Planning: Whether I'm comparing Airbnb listings or hunting for hotels near the airport, the browser agent beats Google's lists of blue links. If I have questions about the options, I can just ask it to dig in more for me.

 

FYI: Atlas finally wrapped up my walnut search. It suggested three stores -- none of which actually had walnuts in stock when I called. But one did mention a local international market that carries them. Success! Sometimes, good old-fashioned human browsing still cracks the nut.

 

Amazon outage

 

Where were you when the internet died? Hopefully somewhere with a good story to tell your grandkids. On Monday morning a small glitch in an obscure Amazon database reminded us just how fragile our internet-powered lives really are. Across much of the country, Alexa devices couldn't hear. Slack messages wouldn't post. Zoom, Venmo, Instacart? Temporarily out of commission. Some smart bed owners even awoke to find their mattresses mutinying against them, stuck at infernally high temperatures or locked in weird positions.

 

Though it's too soon to tell the exact cost of the Amazon Web Services, or AWS, outage, other companies have faced pricey claims and lawsuits when their services caused similar headaches.

 

Long memory

 

Claude no longer has the memory of a goldfish. Anthropic began rolling out Memory to all paid subscribers on Thursday, meaning the AI can now remember your past chats and carry deeper context across conversations. Like ChatGPT, you can view and edit what Claude remembers about you in settings, and even import or export memory from other bots, like ChatGPT or Gemini.” [1]

 

1. The World of AI Web Browsers Is Quickly Getting Crowded. Stern, Joanna.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 27 Oct 2025: A11.