OpenAI to launch web browser to take on Google Chrome: Report

After disrupting the tech world with its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, OpenAI is expected to launch an AI-powered web browser in the coming weeks that will take on Alphabet's Google Chrome, Reuters reported.

The browser, which aims to integrate artificial intelligence, could change the way users browse the web, giving OpenAI access to user data, the report said.

Chrome plays a key role in Alphabet’s ad operations—contributing to nearly 75% of the company’s total income—by supplying user data that enhances ad targeting and profitability. If ChatGPT’s 500 million weekly users were to embrace OpenAI’s browser, it could challenge a critical element of Google’s advertising revenue stream, the report said.

In May, OpenAI said it would enter the hardware domain by paying $6.5 billion to buy io, an AI devices startup from Apple's former design chief, Jony Ive. Ive, once the creative force behind the iPhone and Mac, will now help Altman’s OpenAI build AI-centric hardware.

“We’re thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and have assumed deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI,” Altman and Ive said in a letter on July 9.

Calling the deal an “extraordinary moment”, the letter said, “Computers are now seeing, thinking and understanding. Despite this unprecedented capability, our experience remains shaped by traditional products and interfaces.”

Two years ago, Ive and the creative collective LoveFrom, quietly began collaborating with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI. A collaboration built upon friendship, curiosity and shared values quickly grew in ambition. Tentative ideas and explorations evolved into tangible designs.

"It became clear that our ambitions demanded an entirely new company... We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing. Many of us have worked closely for decades. The new team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” the letter said.

“What it means to use technology can change in a profound way. I hope we can bring some of the delight, wonder and creative spirit that I first felt using an Apple Computer 30 years ago,” Altman had said. “AI is an incredible technology, but great tools require work at the intersection of technology, design, and understanding people and the world. No one can do this like Jony and his team; the amount of care they put into every aspect of the process is extraordinary,” he added.