ChatGPT Atlas

What it is

ChatGPT Atlas is a web browser with ChatGPT built in. OpenAI released it for macOS on 21 October 2025, and announced Windows, iOS and Android versions as coming soon.^[1][2]

Origins

The browser is built on the open-source Chromium project, which is the same foundation used by many mainstream browsers. It has a ChatGPT sidebar and follows a freemium model, in which basic use is free and paid plans unlock more.^[1]

Because the browser engine is shared with other Chromium browsers, web pages generally display in much the same way as they do in those browsers.

Atlas arrived shortly after Perplexity's Comet browser and was seen as a challenge to Google Chrome.^[2]

Main features

An optional agent mode let ChatGPT control the cursor and complete tasks on websites. It was available to paid Plus and Pro subscribers.^[1][3] Controlling the cursor means the AI moves the pointer, clicks and types on a page on the user's behalf.

Optional browser memories let ChatGPT remember context from the pages a user visited. OpenAI said the memories were held on its servers for 30 days.^[1]

Updates added vertical tabs and passkey support in November 2025, and tab groups and an Auto search mode in January 2026.^[1]

Concerns

Security researchers and media raised privacy and prompt-injection concerns about the agent and memory features. Prompt injection is an attack in which text on a web page tries to override the instructions the AI is following.^[3][2] Because the memory feature stores information about pages a user visited, questions about how long that information is kept and where it is held became part of the debate.

Why it matters

Atlas moved ChatGPT from a chat window into the browser, where it could sit beside the page a user had open and, in agent mode, act on that page. The later merger folded the browser into a wider desktop application.

Merger and shutdown

On 19 March 2026 OpenAI announced that it would merge Atlas, the ChatGPT desktop app and Codex into one desktop superapp.^[4] Atlas was later folded into that combined app and was officially shut down on 9 August 2026.^[1][2]