ChatGPT Atlas browser: the greatest thing since tabs in Firefox

27 October 2025

Tabbed browsing, was, says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the last significant web browser innovation. Although tabbed browsing didn’t become common place until around 2002, the idea dates back to 1994, with the arrival of InternetWorks, a browser made by BookLink Technologies. Altman seems to be suggesting browsers have barely changed since the early days of the web.

He made the remark during his introduction to ChatGPT Altas, OpenAI’s new web browser, last week. His words made people take notice, but Altman doesn’t seem to know his onions. Atlas is not a web browser, it is an AI-powered aggregator of information, which may, or may not, be accurate.

So far, Atlas is only available on MacOs, meaning I’ve not had a chance to try the innovative “browser” out, but certain aspects of its functionality either baffled or alarmed me, as I watched the OpenAI video presentation. To make use of Atlas, we are required to type out commands or prompts, in strikingly similar fashion to ChatGPT.

That’s not typically how browsers are used, but as I say, Atlas doesn’t seem like a web browser to me anyway. Of more concern is the way Atlas can, potentially, access files on the local drive of your computer, or if you allow it, the contents of your email app. AI scrapers, including no doubt OpenAI’s, have been trawling my website for years probably, but that’s content in the public domain.

AI bots going through what’s in my email app, and doing whatever with it, including training LLMs is another matter entirely. But Atlas is an AI browser, so buyer beware, this is no normal web “browser” if it is even one in the first place. If people want to use it, that’s for them to decide.

What’s more unsettling though, are regular browsers, such as Firefox, morphing into AI-browsers. Mozilla, the manufacturer of Firefox, which I have been using for over twenty years, is not, it seems, introducing a new browser line, instead it is integrating AI features into an existing product.

This is not a good move, we’re all going to end up running clones of Atlas on our devices, whether we like it or not. If Mozilla wants to make an AI-powered browser, fine, but develop a separate product, and let users decide if they want to use it. Leave the original Firefox, whose early predecessor, Phoenix, shipped with those groundbreaking tabs Altman spoke of, back in 2002, as it is.

Somehow I cannot see any of that happening. Firefox is going to become an AI browser whether we like it or not. There is, however a way to opt out of Firefox’s AI functionality, as New Zealand/Aotearoa blogger fLaMEd Fury, has detailed.