OpenAI Launches Atlas Browser, Entering the AI Search War Against Google and Perplexity
- Category: AI Automations
- Date 20-10-2025
The AI search wars have a new competitor – one that just might have a leg up.
On Tuesday, OpenAI unveiled Atlas, a new web browser built “with ChatGPT at its core.” The browser is now available on macOS for all OpenAI Free, Plus, Pro, and Go users, as well as in beta for Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans. Android, iOS, and Windows experiences are on the way.
The company noted in its press release that Atlas builds off of the success it saw with adding search to its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, and brings it closer to creating a “true super-assistant.”
Users have the option to allow Atlas to remember context from the sites they visit to answer queries, and it offers an “agent mode” that enables automation to work with a user’s browsing context.
CEO Sam Altman said in a livestream on Tuesday that “AI represents a rare once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about.”
The release of Atlas puts OpenAI in direct competition with two major AI rivals: Perplexity and Google.
Perplexity has been particularly active lately, launching the free version of its Comet browser at the beginning of October, launching “background assistants” that work with users’ context, and forging media partnerships for an AI-powered news feed.
Google, which holds market dominance in the search space, has long been working on implementing AI into its popular browser with things like AI overviews. (Shares of its parent company, Alphabet, fell on the news of Atlas’ release.)
Despite competition, OpenAI might have an upper hand. AI is changing the way people surface information: According to Similarweb, nearly 14% of users who visited Google in September also visited ChatGPT. AI is also changing the makeup of who is using the internet broadly, as bots account for a rapidly growing percentage of all internet traffic.
OpenAI making a play for the search market is a no-brainer. Despite holding the title of the most valuable private company, its revenue sits far, far below its valuation, and it still hasn’t managed to make a profit. A browser could give OpenAI the opportunity to eventually sell ads, opening the door to an incredibly lucrative market that has allowed tech giants like Google and Meta to make their fortunes. Breaking into this business could help it finally see some return on the billions it has poured into its models.