When was the last time you thought about your web browser? If you don’t remember, no one will blame you. Web browsers have remained fundamentally unchanged for decades: You open an app, such as Chrome, Safari or Firefox, and type a website into the address bar, and off you go. A web browser is important because so much of what we do on computers takes place inside one.But things are perhaps about to change a bit, as a new kind of browser is appearing on the horizon. The ones powered by generative artificial intelligence or GenAI, the tech driving popular chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini. Dia from New York-based startup the Browser Company illuminates how a web browser can do much more than load websites — in seconds, Dia can provide a written recap of a 20-minute video without you having to watch its entirety. While scanning a breaking news article, the browser generates a list of other relevant articles for a deeper understanding. Like other web browsers, Dia is an app you open to load webpages. What’s unique is the way the browser seamlessly integrates an AI chatbot to help – without leaving the webpage.Hitting a shortcut (command+E) in Dia opens a small window that runs parallel to the webpage. Here, you can type questions related to the content you are reading or the video you are watching, and a chatbot will respond.In contrast, chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude require opening a separate tab or app and pasting in content for the chatbot to evaluate and answer questions.This week, Perplexity, a startup that makes a search engine, announced an AI web browser called Comet, and some news outlets reported that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, also plans to release a browser this year. OpenAI declined to comment. Tech behemoths like Google and Apple have added lightweight AI features into their existing browsers, Chrome and Safari, including tools for proofreading text and summarising articles.The Browser Company said it had teamed up with multiple companies to use their AI models for Dia. Basically, the user doesn’t need to know or think about which chatbot to use. That, in a way, makes generative AI more accessible to the mainstream.The privacy questionPrivacy experts have long warned not to share any sensitive information, like a document containing trade secrets, with an AI chatbot since a rogue element could gain access to the data. When browsing something you wouldn’t want others to know about, like a health condition, it’s better to refrain from using the AI. This exchange – potentially giving up some privacy to get help from AI – may be the new social contract going forward.Will you pay for it?Dia is free, but AI models have generally been very expensive for companies to operate. Consumers who rely on Dia’s AI browser will eventually have to pay, say its makers. The browser will remain free for those who use the AI tool only a few times a week. So whether an AI browser will be your next web browser will depend largely on how much you want to use, and pay, for these services. So far, only 3% of those who use AI every day are paid users, according to a survey by Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm.
