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OpenAI has launched a new web browser, Atlas, directly challenging Google in the online search market as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to how users find information. This strategic move could position the ChatGPT maker, the world's most valuable startup, as a primary gateway for internet traffic, potentially unlocking significant revenue from digital advertising. Despite ChatGPT boasting over 800 million users, many access the service for free. The San Francisco-based company is reportedly operating at a loss and is actively seeking avenues to achieve profitability. OpenAI’s browser is coming out just a few months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google’s industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge had required it to be sold to prevent the abuses that resulted in Google’s ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly. But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta last month issued a decision that rejected the Chrome sale sought by the U.S. Justice Department in the monopoly case, partly because he believed advances in the AI industry already are reshaping the competitive landscape. OpenAI’s browser will face a daunting challenge against Chrome, which has amassed about 3 billion worldwide users and has been adding some AI features from Google’s Gemini technology. Chrome’s immense success could provide a blueprint for OpenAI as it enters the browser market. When Google released Chrome in 2008, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was so dominant that few observers believed a new browser could mount a formidable threat. But Chrome quickly won over legions of admirers by loading webpages more quickly than Internet Explorer while offering other advantages that enabled it to upend the market. Microsoft ended up abandoning Explorer and introducing its Edge browser, which operates similarly to Chrome. Perplexity, another smaller AI startup, rolled out its own Comet browser earlier this year. It also expressed interest in buying Chrome and eventually submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer for the browser that hit a dead end when Mehta decided against a Google breakup.
