This week, OpenAI debuted its long-rumored AI browser that aims to put its AI chatbot at the center of the internet. The browser, called ChatGPT Atlas, is entering a space thatโs already occupied by Perplexityโs Comet and Google Gemini in Chrome. OpenAI is likely betting that putting ChatGPT front and center is enough to draw users in, but the overall experience falls short when compared to rivals so far.
The Chromium-based ChatGPT Atlas โ currently exclusive to macOS, though versions for other platforms are promised โ comes with a minimalist interface. On the left side of the window, youโll find a collapsible tab with your ChatGPT history. In the center is your URL bar, which also lets you directly search using ChatGPT. On the right is an โAsk ChatGPTโ button, which you can hit to chat specifically about whatever website youโre currently on. For ChatGPT Plus, Business, and Pro members, thereโs also an โagentic mode,โ which can complete tasks like adding items to an online shopping cart.
ChatGPT Atlasโ homescreen offers suggestions for getting started, like โFind the best restaurants near me.โ Over time, it populates with some recommendations based on what youโve searched for in the browser, though it wasnโt always clear how โ the browser showed me a suggested search for Halloween costume recommendations after I asked ChatGPT for ideas a few times, but never surfaced anything related to restaurants despite me conducting multiple searches for them. Either way, I found myself missing the option to view the daily news stories and weather I can find on the Microsoft Edge homepage, or the Perplexity Comet browserโs customizable โDiscoverโ page with recent news, even if all its snippets are AI-generated (which raises a bunch of questions).
Once you do get started with ChatGPT Atlas, the immediately obvious problem is that ChatGPT simply doesnโt feel like an adequate portal to the web. When you first type a query, youโll typically receive an AI-generated response from ChatGPT, after which you can elect to do things like turn your query into a classic web search with a list of related blue links, similar to classic Google Search. But the results arenโt always relevant. When I searched for โnews near me,โ for example, ChatGPT provided an AI-generated response with stories relevant to my area. But the search results page gave me links to local news websites for the San Francisco Bay Area; Little Rock, Arkansas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and other locations where I donโt live.
Like Google, ChatGPT Atlas will display a map if youโre looking for a business or attraction in a specific area, along with a brief description of each spot and its hours, price range, and ratings. But you canโt click into the reviews or even see where they come from. This puts OpenAI at a disadvantage compared to, say, Comet, which features a TripAdvisor integration, allowing you to view more detailed information about a location, images, and AI-summarized reviews.
Searches for other topics, like โhow to apply fertilizer to an orchidโ or โbest restaurants in Las Vegas,โ yielded more relevant results from across the web. But ChatGPT Atlas will show you just 10 links per query, with no option to include results beyond that. When you enter a new question in the same chat, ChatGPT Atlas will stack the results, allowing you to scroll up and down the page to see all the links relevant to your chat. The split between topics isnโt easy to see, as ChatGPT Atlas divides it with a barely visible gray line and text that states what youโve searched for.
OpenAI will also save your searches to the same place where your ChatGPT conversations go, which can quickly clutter things up if you want to revisit certain chats from the chatbotโs standalone app. The limited search experience is probably why ChatGPT Atlas includes a link to Google in the top-right corner of each search results page.
In addition to the new web search tab, ChatGPT Atlas displays options to search for images, videos, and news stories. Thereโs also a โbrowser memoriesโ feature within ChatGPT Atlas, which tailors chat responses and suggestions to your recent queries. ChatGPT Atlas can reorder and close tabs for you as well, with the ability to group tabs on the way.
Of course, the big promise of AI browsers isnโt just that theyโll let you find things online, but that they can help contextualize and navigate whatever youโre looking at. When you land on a webpage with ChatGPT Atlas, you can highlight and right-click text to ask ChatGPT for more information about a specific snippet. You can also open up the Ask ChatGPT tab on the upper-right side of the browser to ask questions about what youโre reading, or to surface related information without having to open another tab. Itโs basically a ChatGPT-flavored version of Gemini in Chrome and Perplexityโs AI assistant in Comet, and after a bit of early testing, seems to work about as well.
The agentic mode for paid users goes a step further and can perform tasks on your behalf, such as making appointments or booking trips, or helping you complete a purchase. It will do this, however, a bit slowly. I found that you have to manually select the โagentic modeโ button before making your request; otherwise, ChatGPT Atlas will say it canโt complete the task.
For my first request, I asked ChatGPT Atlas to fill up my Amazon cart with items based on my recent browsing history, and it took the chatbot a total of 10 minutes to add just three items. I watched as ChatGPT Atlas navigated Amazonโs interface and talked itself through various issues. โIt appears I opened a new tab, but itโs still showing โabout:blank,โ which means the page hasnโt fully loaded. Iโll give it time,โ ChatGPT wrote to itself at one point. Meanwhile, it took Comet about two minutes to add three items to my cart โ still not blazing fast, but more reasonable.
But ChatGPT Atlas successfully composed and sent an email directly in Gmail in around 30 seconds, and created a Google Calendar event for me in the same amount of time. It also searched for the best restaurants near me and got ready to book a reservation at one in a few minutes, but it got tripped up when I asked it to schedule the reservation for โnext Friday.โ ChatGPT Atlas scheduled it for this Friday instead.
Given the options already out there, ChatGPT Atlas is a bit of an underwhelming start for a company that wants to build a series of interconnected apps that could eventually become an AI operating system. The company has already launched apps within ChatGPT that work directly with services like Zillow, Spotify, and Canva, along with a way to purchase products from Walmart and Etsy while using the chatbot, none of which requires a dedicated browser. AI may be the future of search, but ChatGPT Atlas still needs a lot of work if OpenAI wants to pull people away from traditional browsers like Chrome.
