OpenAI Chromium Browser May Do the Browsing So You Don’t Have To

More and more people are starting to turn to AI to search for the things they need rather than Google. It’s not hard to see why. AI allows users to frame questions naturally, which makes it easier for less tech-savvy users who don’t know their “Google-fu.” However, it looks like some AI companies want more. So much so that, according to a report from BleepingComputer, OpenAI could be working on its own Chromium browser.

OpenAI developing its own Chromium browser

This isn’t the first time we’re hearing about OpenAI’s plans. There was a report dating back to July that hinted that OpenAI was developing a Chromium browser to rival that of Google Chrome.

The report suggests that we can look forward to features like AI-powered tab selection and even a feature that does the browsing for you. This could end up working similar to Copilot mode in Microsoft Edge. Also, OpenAI has an Agent mode in ChatGPT. This is a more advanced feature that basically handles more complex tasks from start to end.

So, instead of users accomplishing AI tasks piecemeal, you could get it to do it all for you, such as creating a PowerPoint presentation that includes all your documents and sources. This seems like it could be a great fit for an AI-powered browser.

Assuming these reports are accurate, OpenAI would join the likes of Perplexity in building a browser to rival Chrome. Will these AI features be good enough to get users to switch? We’ll have to wait and see.

Potential drawbacks

From an end-user perspective, this sounds great. It sounds efficient. Imagine, a browser that could do all your browsing for you without you having to comb through websites one by one, while finding all the information you need.

However, there are several downsides. First, it would be the impact on traffic. Many websites are reporting a drop in traffic as users are turning more to AI for their search queries. Even Google’s AI Overviews, which are part of the search results, have impacted a lot of websites. Google denies this, but it’s not hard to see why this is happening.

Next, AI is known to hallucinate, which is to make up information that is completely false. Relying so heavily on AI means that users could start taking the information it dishes out as fact. We already have a fake news problem, and this could end up compounding it.