OpenAI to Release AI-Based Browser That Could Replace Google Chrome

San Francisco – Three people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters that OpenAI is almost ready to launch an AI-Powered web browser that will compete with Alphabet’s market-dominant Google Chrome.

According to three of the people, the browser is expected to emerge in the upcoming weeks and intends to revolutionize web browsing by utilizing artificial intelligence. It will provide OpenAI with greater direct access to user data, which is a key component of Google’s success.

If OpenAI’s browser is embraced by ChatGPT’s 500 million weekly active users, it may exert pressure on a crucial element of competitor Google’s ad-money faucet. Chrome is a key component of Alphabet’s ad business, which accounts for about three-quarters of its revenue. It gives Google a mechanism to automatically direct search traffic to its own engine and gives Alphabet user data to help target advertising more successfully and efficiently.

According to two sources, OpenAI’s browser is made to allow some user interactions to remain within a native chat interface that resembles ChatGPT rather than requiring users to link through to websites.

According to one of the insiders, the browser is a component of OpenAI’s larger plan to integrate its services into users’ personal and professional lives.

OpenAI chose not to respond. Since the sources are not permitted to discuss the issue in public, they chose not to be named. With the release of their AI chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022, OpenAI, led by entrepreneur Sam Altman, completely changed the IT sector. Following its early success, OpenAI is searching for fresh development opportunities as it faces fierce competition from rivals like Google and startup Anthropic.

• Also Check: ChatGPT Can Now Replace Gemini as the Default Assistant on Android

By investing $6.5 billion to acquire io, an AI device firm founded by Jony Ive, the former design leader of Apple, OpenAI announced in May that it will venture into the hardware space. According to the persons, OpenAI will be able to directly integrate its AI agent products, like Operator, into the browsing experience using a web browser, allowing the browser to perform tasks on the user’s behalf.

The browser is the perfect platform for AI “agents” that may perform tasks on a user’s behalf, such as making reservations or completing forms, right within the websites they visit because it has access to their online activities.

Tough competition

With over 3 billion users, Google Chrome presently commands over two-thirds of the global browser market, according to web analytics company StatCounter, thus OpenAI has its work cut out for it. With a 16% share, Safari, Apple’s second-place app, trails far behind. OpenAI claimed to have 3 million paying business users for ChatGPT last month.

On Wednesday, Perplexity, the company behind the well-known AI search engine, unveiled Comet, an AI browser that can act on a user’s behalf. AI-powered browsers that can explore and summarize the internet have been released by two other AI businesses, Brave and The Browser Company.

Following a U.S. judge’s decision last year that the Google parent company had an illegal monopoly in internet search, the Department of Justice has ordered Chrome’s divestiture due to Chrome’s performance in helping Alphabet target advertising more profitably and effectively by supplying user information.

According to two of the sources, OpenAI’s browser is based on Google’s own open-source browser code, Chromium. The source code for Google Chrome and other rival browsers, such as Microsoft Edge and Opera, is called Chromium. Two former Google vice presidents who were on the initial Google Chrome development team were hired by OpenAI last year. The first to reveal their hires and the fact that OpenAI had previously contemplated developing a browser was The Information.

If antitrust authorities were successful in forcing the sale, an OpenAI executive stated in an April testimony that the business would be interested in purchasing Chrome. Chrome is not for sale from Google. The business has stated that it intends to challenge the monopolistic verdict.

In order to have more control over the data it can gather, OpenAI chose to develop its own browser rather than just a “plug-in” on top of another company’s browser, according to one source.