I Tried Openai's New Atlas Browser but I Still Don't Know What It's For

Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago

devonnull

18 points

11 comments

technologyreview.comTechstory

skepticalmixed

Debate

40/100

OpenaiAI BrowserTechnology Adoption

Key topics

Openai

AI Browser

Technology Adoption

The author tried OpenAI's new Atlas browser but remains unclear about its purpose, sparking a discussion about the browser's potential use cases and the challenges of integrating AI into existing workflows.

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Light discussion

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50m

Peak period

5-6h

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Comment distribution11 data points

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Based on 11 loaded comments

Key moments

01Story posted
Oct 28, 2025 at 1:14 AM EDT
2 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Oct 28, 2025 at 2:04 AM EDT
50m after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
3 comments in 5-6h
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04Latest activity
Oct 28, 2025 at 10:02 AM EDT
2 months ago
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Discussion (11 comments)

Showing 11 comments

mdhb

2 months ago

2 replies

It’s designed for stealing your data, they can’t exactly list that as one of their primary use cases but it’s the truth. You are there to help feed their training models.

rightbyte

2 months ago

> your data

I think stealing third party data that are either paywalled or private might be a main objective too.

smugtrain

2 months ago

Was Chrome browser designed for any other reason?

artursp

2 months ago

2 replies

It is still early days - gpt powered browsers are becoming a commodity. One use I've found is leadgen automation. But it still not stable and frequently ends up in infinite loops.

rightbyte

2 months ago

1 reply

> One use I've found is leadgen automation

Is 'leadgen automation' an euphemism for ads?

csande17

2 months ago

1 reply

It is a euphemism for "spam". (Or, more precisely, collecting a list of people's contact information to send unsolicited messages to.)

fragmede

2 months ago

2 replies

What do you call it when you have a form where people give you their email explicitly to to sign up for notifications about your product? Or does that not called lead gen?

fzzzy

2 months ago

How is a gpt browser useful for that?

csande17

2 months ago

If you're using the email addresses to provide some specific thing the user asked for, that's not lead gen, that's just "notifications" or "a newsletter" or whatever actual thing you're doing.

If someone voluntarily gives you their email address and then you send them marketing messages, the part where you collect their email address is called "lead gen". But all the other parts of that process have different names (creating a cool-looking blog is "content marketing", getting people to visit it is "SEO", sending the marketing emails is "nurturing"), and AI can't really automate the process of someone else typing their email address into a form, so in an AI context "lead generation automation" usually means either data gathering or cold outreach.

clickety_clack

2 months ago

By what metric are they becoming a commodity? They’re niche among a niche group of tech enthusiasts.

skeptrune

2 months ago

I am incredibly amused by the idea that OpenAI was so cynical about the latest in what people are hyping that they decided to make a browser themselves.

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