Has OpenAI shown us a future for Safari?

Has OpenAI shown us the future of Safari? In one way it has, because its new Atlas browser shows these generative AI (genAI)-based apps are no longer just windows to the web — they’re becoming intelligent copilots for our digital lives. 

That’s one of the takeaways from the introduction this week of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-powered browser for Macs. The move builds on last year’s addition of search to ChatGPT and takes the company forward toward building what it describes as a “true super-assistant that understands your world and helps you achieve your goals.”

Because it is contextually aware, the browser window can answer complex inquiries, such as finding all the job postings you looked at recently and preparing a summary of key industry trends to help prepare for a potential interview. This uses a feature called Browser Memories, (which OpenAI describes as being optional).

The browser also works in agentic mode for research, analysis, task automation, event planning and more. (These features are only available to fee-paying users at the moment.)

What does this all mean?

First, it means OpenAI is coming for the browser market. That’s a direct challenge to search services, including Google’s, but is also an attempt to become the primary interaction tool most people use every day when they are online. That’s going to equate to market share, of course, but it will also generate vast quantities of data. 

If you think about using browsers in a physically contextual sense, that means from the day you first use a computer browser at pre-school to the day you finally close it down for the very last time, you will be giving OpenAI (or some company) lots of personal data, including your likes, dislikes, questions. Over time, your browser will learn who you are, and could eventually become something of a digital twin.

While privacy is promised, we’ve all seen this before; plenty of information will be gathered and eventually used. Indeed, as the still money-losing OpenAI attempts to grab and vigorously shake the Magic Money Tree to find profitability, it’s reasonable to think highly personalized advertising might eventually be part of its plan. 

It just needs market share to get there. 

Upstarts and incumbents

All of this is a direct threat to Google; the problem for the incumbent search giant is that it faces far more regulatory scrutiny than its emerging competitor, which means OpenAI can afford to take more risks and move faster. 

History shows regulation never really kicks in until empires are made, after which it’s about crafting space for new thrones to form. This is precisely what’s happening to Google and Apple in the US, the UK, the EU and elsewhere right now, with the stage being prepared for new tech giants to grow.

But I digress. OpenAI does not work in isolation. There are other AI firms and Big Tech names (including Apple and Google) who are also seeking to build AI-empowered services and solutions for the mass market. So, while Atlas might already be in the here and now, it won’t stand alone for long — no matter how much dystopian shrugging it may engage in. Rivals will be seeking to identify points of competition through which to build their own bridges into the agentic AI future of tech and humanity. That basically means Google will continue to weave AI into its own answers engines.

Old habits may die harder

It could also mean Apple will seek to exploit its existing technologies to offer something similar. It might instead see its role as to provide distribution to these genAI partners — distribution it desperately needs as it seeks to break decades of web-surfing habits. (Breaking habits is critical to OpenAI, too — as it will be to all the other AI-augmented browsers that likely follow Atlas.)

Apple watchers know Google pays billions to be the default search engine on iOS devices, and while that deal is under scrutiny, it remains in place. Will OpenAI need to bid to take Google’s place? If it does, would Google bid back?

>We’ll wait to see how people react to these offerings in the real world beyond technologists. Despite the fast-growing AI bubble, most ordinary people remain deeply suspicious of the needs and motivation of the tech. 

To get past that habit and reticence, you’ll need to offer something great.

Having taken a look at Atlas, Deepwater Asset Management analyst Gene Munster observed that while the browser is a step forward, “especially around agents,” it is not 10 times better than Chrome. “Google can (and will) copy these features quickly, making it harder for Atlas to gain share,” he wrote. 

What about Apple?

What’s interesting is Apple. Because while Google can (and probably will) bring its own AI features to Chrome and search, Apple has its own browser and is thought to be weaving contextual intelligence into it with Apple Intelligence.  With that in mind, when I look at what OpenAI is offering Mac users with Atlas, I can’t help but imagine which of the tools and services it provides could logically be matched and made available within Safari using Apple’s existing technologies? (That would include the vast sum of web knowledge gathered over decades by the Apple Bot). 

For the rest of us, it’s worth thinking about the kind of online experience Open AI now promises us with its Atlas shrug. To what extent do you prioritize convenience over privacy, and where do you draw the line? Who will you permit to own your own unique digital twin? Or will you choose to keep it under your own personal control?

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