ChatGPT Atlas AI Browser First Impressions

OpenAI launched its third consumer-facing product and its first artificial intelligence (AI) browser on Tuesday. Dubbed ChatGPT Atlas, the browser makes a late entry in the market, trailing after The Browser Company's Dia browser and Perplexity's Comet browser. It also follows pages from their playbook with features such as a sidebar assistant, a homepage which is reminiscent of its chatbot's interface, and agentic capabilities. And all three of them are Chromium-based browsers, meaning the basic functionalities remain the same.

A combination of all these factors puts ChatGPT Atlas in a tricky situation, as it must compete with established products and user bases. While it does have the label of a bigger brand, is that all the GPT-5-powered (or GPT-4o after you've run out of tokens in the free tier) AI browser has to offer? Here are our first impressions about OpenAI's first foray into the browser segment.

ChatGPT Atlas: Design and User Interface

ChatGPT Atlas, which is currently only available on macOS, comes with a minimalist design, similar to its other AI apps. The browser has a default colour scheme of black and white, which will immediately remind users of ChatGPT. And it should, because the home page is essentially just the ChatGPT interface, complete with the recent conversations side panel, text box, and centrally placed OpenAI logo.

The rest of the browser follows the macOS design language, with app shortcuts placed in the top left corner and new tabs denoted by rectangles with rounded corners and a plus icon. The user interface (UI) does change a little bit after you type (or speak) your query, but the basic design remains the same.

ChatGPT Atlas home tab

Unlike ChatGPT, typing a query here takes you to a new page. While the URL says “chatgpt.com”, the UI is somewhat different. There are five different icons at the top — home, web search, images, videos, and news. Apart from the home tab, the functionality is the same as the name suggests.

The home tab is essentially the one-on-one AI-human interaction you get in ChatGPT. There are minor changes, however. As soon as the response begins, you will see URLs that are most relevant to the query. This is followed by several images of the query topic. Then, the typical AI-generated response begins, and at the end, the AI suggests a follow-up question.

ChatGPT Atlas Features and Limitations

Before we get into the features, it should be noted that I did not test the “browser memory” feature. Since it is essentially a personalisation tool that requires using the browser for a longer period to see the impact, it did not fit into the practicality of a first impressions story. We were also not able to test out the agentic capabilities because that is reserved for the paid subscribers.

Interestingly, if you ask a query to ChatGPT Atlas and tap into the web search tab, it will show you search results similar to any typical search engine. However, I was surprised to see that you cannot open multiple pages here. It is one page with like 10-15 results, and that's it. I'm not sure how OpenAI is ranking these pages either, but the fact that I'm limited to a small number of options makes the web search functionality unusable.

ChatGPT Atlas news tab

Images, videos, and news tabs also suffer from the same issue. Maybe the idea here is to trust the AI, and it will surface the best results, but in my brief testing, that was not what I observed. Most of the surfaced results were tightly tied to keywords, and it felt like I was subjected to a poorly designed website's search bar that does not go beyond surface-level sorting.

But you can still look past this obvious downside since it is essentially a browser, and its home screen experience is not the hero feature. Just stick to Google Search and you will be fine.

Speaking of the hero feature, the sidebar assistant is powered by the same AI model as your ChatGPT account. It can perform basic tasks such as summarising a web page, answering queries about the content, and even offering alternative viewpoints. For most parts, the responses were good enough and helpful.

ChatGPT Atlas prompt suggestions

The reason I know the AI assistant can do these things is that it lets me know via prompt suggestions, which kept changing based on which web page I was currently on. It is a very nice inclusion for new users and those who are not familiar with AI browsers.

You can also ask the assistant to take you to another website (even if you do not know the URL), and it will promptly do so after taking your permission. I tested out its shopping capabilities by asking it to look for a certain product on Amazon, and it was able to do so more or less, but it was fairly slow, and I could have done it in half the time. There is definitely a lot of room for improvement.

ChatGPT Atlas showed this error message on YouTube

Finally, I tested it on YouTube to see if it can answer questions based on a video that's playing. At first, it refused to answer the question and cited an error message. But after asking it to summarise the video, it was then able to answer some basic questions.

During these tests, I also ran into an annoying problem. After sending about 10 messages, the sidebar assistant informs that the GPT-5 plan limit is over. While users can continue to access the AI, it is not possible to continue the conversation on that tab.

ChatGPT Atlas' AI assistant hit the plan limit, forcing me to start over in a new tab

So, it does not matter if you are in the middle of purchasing an item during a flash sale or booking a ticket for a concert that's selling out fast; once that message appears, you cannot get any further assistance from the chatbot, even if it's the older GPT-4o. However, this issue will likely not bother you if you have subscribed to one of the paid plans.

The ChatGPT Atlas definitely shows a lot of promise with its fast speed, polished UI, and powerful AI models backing the sidebar AI assistant; however, some of the issues with the browser's basic features can leave one frustrated.