How AI Browsers Are the New Hotness and What This Means for Us

AI is everywhere these days, and it looks like our web browsers will be the new battlefield. What we are witnessing in the world of web development and browsing is, at least, an interesting time. What was once a browser and some useful extras is quickly becoming something much deeper, and I guess you could call it a fully native AI ecosystem. Browsers are no longer just about display and navigation; nope, they are being reimagined as aides, collaborators, and even productivity powerhouses.

I have been playing around with some of the new AI browsers, and I have pretty much settled on one as my primary (for now). I used to browse on Brave Browser, but now I mostly use Comet by Perplexity AI. I’m also testing out ChatGPT Atlas, and others such as Zen Browser and Dia Browser.

In this article, I will walk you through:

• Why AI browsers are becoming a major shift
• My hands-on experience with the main players
• What strengths they bring, and what risks we should be aware of
• What this means for developers, power-users and the "regular" browser user

Why AI Browsers Are Becoming Something Big

The era of the Chrome browser with a static display, tabs, and navigation has been disrupted by tools that understand context, help you do things and speak to you like agents.

Here are some of the developments worth following:

• Built-in AI personal assistants that summarise pages, highlight data, and compare open tabs. For example, Comet allows you to highlight any text and ask a question about it.
• Browsers that are designed for workflows, not just websites. They can assist you in sending emails, organising tabs, and even making purchases and all powered by AI.
• A new race of big tech actors creating "agentic browsers" (as opposed to just browsers with AI features). And Comet is "the AI browser Google wants."

It’s not just a question of "which browser do I use" but also, "of which known browser agent am I part".

On Twitter/X, a developer called Dominik Kundel created a viral post where he said, "With ChatGPT Atlas, every coding app is now a vibe coding app". And he showed a video demo.

You can see it here:

My Hands-On Experience with the Main Players

Here’s how things have gone in real use and what I tried, what I switched to, and what I’m watching next.

Comet (Perplexity AI)

After years on Brave, I migrated to Comet. What drew me in was the fact that Comet starts as an AI browser (on top of Chromium) with extension and interface backward compatibility. It includes deep integration of Perplexity’s AI assistant, so not just a sidebar but context-aware interaction. In use, I found it pretty slick; you can highlight data and have the browser summarise multiple tabs or request it to go find insights across all open tabs.

Despite all of this, I believe that there are real risks which people have noted. For example, security analysis at Brave reveals that indirect prompt injection attacks (based on screenshots or hidden content) can seize control of agentic browsers like Comet.

They made a Twitter/X thread on it, which you can read here:

ChatGPT Atlas (OpenAI)

This is OpenAI's entry into the AI browser space, released 21 October 2025. I have been experimenting with it. Obviously, it uses the OpenAI model ecosystem, with deep integration with ChatGPT workflows, and a big brand backing.

At this stage, I find that it's fresh, but not as mature as Comet on a day-to-day use basis, but it could be promising. I feel like if it had been released before Comet or even on the same day, it would have eaten into its market share.

Other Browsers like Zen and Dia

Zen Browser is another worth mentioning. It has been out for a while and has a decent following. Zen was even a top open source project on GitHub in 2025, which you can read about here:

Dia Browser and others are also appearing. It’s still early days, but these are the signs that the browser market is shifting. Dia is essentially a successor to the Arc Browser, which was abandoned over a lack of community uptake and a high learning curve, plus technical debt. The switch to Dia was because it seemed like a good strategic move toward the future state of browsers, and also to address some issues in Arc.

What Strengths Do You Get, And What Needs Caution

Here’s a breakdown of what’s important and what you should keep your eyes on.

AI-first browsers are changing the way we work with the web. They are not just looking over your shoulder at specific tabs and URLs; they know what content you are viewing, so you can ask questions, summarise pages, and even compare info from different tabs. This context-enhanced approach provides a speed-up for workflows by automatically handling repetitive browsing functions of search, analysis and reason across sources. It also combines everything into one environment, so no toggling between your browser, an A.I. tool and a bunch of extensions. For Developers and power users, adopting early means they can influence the development of this evolving ecosystem and give them a competitive edge as the technologies reach a level of maturity.

But agentic, AI-powered browsers carry new risks. Security and privacy also begin to get tricky, as sneaky prompt injections tucked away in images or webpages can influence how an assistant reacts, something that’s been demonstrated by a recent Brave study. These systems also process far more contextual information, giving some people more reasons to worry about the data which is stored, accessed and the transparency of the terms. And although the potential is huge, the ecosystem is also young, with some instability and performance bottlenecks. So basically, deeper integration with certain AI models and vendors could result in lock-in, making it more difficult to remain long-term independent and flexible.

What This Means for Developers and Power Users

For developers like those on Dev.to, Medium, freeCodeCamp and social media, this change has a big upside:

• New tooling mode: The browser is a part of your dev flow, not only to browse docs and GitHub, but reason + summarise + multi-tab cross-analyse
• New extension/agent opportunities: If you create tools, agents or browser extensions, this is also a great field because it affects the design space when you build AI-native browser tools.
• Mistakes of the past: We will do things in our browser history, instant summarisation, tab reasoning, maybe even multi-tab context features. Your applications might want to treat smarter clients.
• The importance of a security-first mindset only increases: As we embed more AI agents into browsers, new routes for exploitation change. Developers must be ready for new attacks, especially if they are developing web apps being consumed by agentic clients.
• Adoption and migrating concerns: In case you lead teams or recommend tooling, monitoring maturity and trade-offs of these browsers make sense before whole adoption.

Conclusion

AI browsers are more than hype; they are the real and huge shift in how we browse, search and interact with the web. For me, moving from Brave to Comet made a difference to my workflow, history-aware browsing and time to get things done. I’m also keeping a close eye on Atlas and the other AI browsers in development.

Regardless, as amazing a development as that is, it's also one that brings with it more responsibility. We should be aware of the security implications, data privacy and the new threat models which emerge when dealing with agentic browsing.

For developers or power users, this is a great time to play with new generations of browsers. They might end up influencing not just what you see on the web, but how developers and workers work online.

Comments

[Madza]

Awesome work as always, mate!