ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 9

What this episode is about

The discussion revolves around the introduction of ChatGPT Atlas, a new browser designed to enhance user interaction with the web through natural language processing. The team explains how Atlas integrates the capabilities of ChatGPT to enable users to seamlessly accomplish tasks, personalize their browsing experience, and engage more effectively with online content.

Key takeaways

• As we embrace AI, browsers are evolving from tools to personalized collaborators in our online journeys.
• ChatGPT Atlas redefines browsing: it’s a conversation, not just a search. Welcome to the age of agentic capabilities!
• Forget memorizing URLs; just tell your computer what you want—AI is the new GPS for the web.
• The browser has a new heart: integrating AI transforms it into a memory-rich, task-oriented powerhouse.
• With demand for smarter interactions rising, the future of browsing is not just digital; it’s almost conversational.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Andrew Mayne (Host) · 30 min speaking
• Ben Goodger (Guest) · 26 min speaking
• Darin Fisher (Guest) · 19 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne, ChatGPT Atlas
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne, Chrome
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Ben Goodger, Darin Fisher, Andrew Mayne
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne
5. 40:00 – 50:00: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne, Chrome
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne, Chrome
7. 1:00:00 – 1:10:00: Ben Goodger, Darin Fisher, Andrew Mayne, ChatGPT Atlas
8. 1:10:00 – 1:14:22: Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne

Notable quotes from "ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 9"

• Darin Fisher: The time is right because it's actually how people should be starting their journey.

  about Darin Fisher · at 0:28

• Ben Goodger: and so central to this idea is that Ben Goodger: If we take ChatGPT and make it the heart of your browser, not just an add-on, it's something that can actually help you make sense of the content that you're seeing on the web.

  about ChatGPT Atlas · at 1:13

• Andrew Mayne: You two have quite a bit of history working in browsers, Netscape.

  about Chrome · at 3:40

• Darin Fisher: And so Darin Fisher: I'm not I'm you know I think it's very in my pr past experience I've s I've been I was marveling even years ago at just how good ChatGPT was…

  about Swift · at 24:19

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Darin Fisher — Person · Main guest · 111 mentions · first at 0:18
  Provides technical and product rationale for Atlas (Chromium choice, OWL architecture, tab model, agent workspace) and frames why the timing is right for an AI-native browser.
• Ben Goodger — Person · Main guest · 94 mentions · first at 0:13
  Co-leads the discussion on what Atlas is, why OpenAI built a browser, and how agentic browsing and deep ChatGPT integration change the user experience.
  Ben Goodger: So Atlas is a new kind of browser for an era of the web where people are Ben Goodger: Interacting with new technology in natural language.
• Andrew Mayne — Person · Host · 51 mentions · first at 0:00
  Introduces the episode, frames the interview, and probes the guests on Atlas’s purpose, architecture, safety/controls, and how agent mode changes browsing behavior.
  Andrew Mayne: Hello, I'm Andrew Mayne and welcome to the OpenAI podcast.

Companies & orgs

• Chrome — Company · Referenced expert · 10 mentions · first at 3:44
  Mentioned in the context of browser development history and comparison with ChatGPT Atlas.
• Firefox — Company · Referenced expert · 2 mentions · first at 3:44
  Mentioned in the context of browser development history and comparison with ChatGPT Atlas.
  Andrew Mayne: You two have quite a bit of history working in browsers, Netscape.

Products & tech

• ChatGPT Atlas — Product · Business focus · 5 mentions · first at 0:09
  A new kind of browser integrating ChatGPT at its core, designed for natural language interaction with the web.
• GPT 5.1 — Product · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 0:03
  Mentioned as one of the recent releases from OpenAI.
  Andrew Mayne: There have been a lot of exciting releases from OpenAI recently, including GPT 5.1, Andrew Mayne: Sora, and one of my favorite new applications, ChatGPT Atlas.
• Swift — Product · Referenced expert · 3 mentions
  Mentioned as a programming language used in the development of ChatGPT Atlas for Windows.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Andrew Mayne: Hello, I'm Andrew Mayne and welcome to the OpenAI podcast. Andrew Mayne: There have been a lot of exciting releases from OpenAI recently, including GPT 5.1, Andrew Mayne: Sora, and one of my favorite new applications, ChatGPT Atlas. Andrew Mayne: Today we're going to be talking to the team behind it, Ben Goodger. Andrew Mayne: and Darin Fisher and explore some of the reasons for why OpenI decided to make a browser, what the future of agentic capabilities mean, and where everything's headed next. Darin Fisher: The time is right because it's actually how people should be starting their journey.

0:32 Ben Goodger: We're moving to a world where you can just tell the computer what you want. Darin Fisher: So I think it's kind of powerful this idea that it Darin Fisher: the agent has its own workspace. Ben Goodger: My view for this has always been that this is like a long-term investment. Andrew Mayne: Let's begin with Andrew Mayne: What is Atlas and why? Ben Goodger: So Atlas is a new kind of browser for an era of the web where people are Ben Goodger: Interacting with new technology in natural language. Ben Goodger: And so it's a the kind of browser where you can just tell it what you want, whether it's to find the next outfit that you're gonna buy or to help you solve a really hard problem.

1:09 Ben Goodger: and then it can help you harness the web to get a bunch of stuff done. Ben Goodger: and so central to this this idea is that Ben Goodger: If we take ChatGPT and make it the heart of your browser, not just an add-on, it's something that can actually help you make sense of the content that you're seeing on the web. Ben Goodger: It's something that can help you take action on the web. Ben Goodger: It's something that can learn from your browsing to personalize your experience and help you with tasks that aren't just done in a few minutes but might take days or weeks or months or just generally help you Ben Goodger: become a more curious, more effective person.

1:48 Darin Fisher: And it can help you come back to a test that maybe you've Darin Fisher: not had a chance to work on in a while because it will remember what you were doing for you and help help you get right back into where you were. Andrew Mayne: Why now? Ben Goodger: I think the the progression of Ben Goodger: Technology, you know, with with these AI models has been really stunning to watch over the past couple of years. Ben Goodger: And it feels like Ben Goodger: We're at this sort of sweet spot where the capabilities of of not just the LLMs that have powered ChatGPT, but also sort of this new area of computer use and some of the other surrounding technology.

2:25 Ben Goodger: Is at a point where we can build some really compelling experiences for people. Ben Goodger: So we wanted to give it a shot. Darin Fisher: You know, like Ben said, the models have gotten so much Darin Fisher: better and they continue to get better and you see the slope of innovation there and the pace of of improvement. Darin Fisher: If you look back at the beginning of the year when Operator first came out, for example, and it sort of like hints at some of the potential. Darin Fisher: And now you fast forward to where Atlas is with agent agent and how much faster it is, how much more capable it is.

2:53 Darin Fisher: Just look at that slope and you start to project. Darin Fisher: What about next what's it going to look like next year, five years out, etc. Darin Fisher:? Darin Fisher: And to get the sort of get that foundation in place. Darin Fisher: That's what we were excited about. Darin Fisher: And it felt like the right time. Darin Fisher: For me personally, you know, I I felt like I know I had made that transition to seeing how ChatGPT makes so much sense in my life to and how much I was using it and feeling like putting ChatGPT at the core of a browser, not just another tab that you have to Darin Fisher: go to to but to have it be at the core and part of that flow the time is right because it's actually how people should be starting their journey.

3:29 Darin Fisher: And so we want to make that just so natural and easy. Darin Fisher: So I'm really excited to that we've been able to bring Atlas up and I'm excited to bring it to more platforms. Andrew Mayne: You two have quite a bit of history working in browsers, Netscape. Andrew Mayne: you've worked on Firefox and Chrome. Andrew Mayne: And I'd like to kind of understand Andrew Mayne: Where do you think we are right now with browsers? Andrew Mayne: We've got like over a 30-year history of these and now it seems like they seem like they'd been changing a little bit incrementally and then all of a sudden now we're adding AI to it, et cetera.

4:02 Andrew Mayne: And how do you look at the browser landscape? Ben Goodger: Well, I think we have entered this really exciting time on the web where we've added this this very Ben Goodger: Han form of interaction in the form of these large language models that you can just speak to the software and have it do the right thing for you. Ben Goodger: And so I think that's really gonna transform the way that people get stuff done online. Ben Goodger: We've gone from a world where you've had to remember website addresses, you've had to go and search for them, and now you're just gonna be able to ask for the task that you want to get done and you're gonna see it.

4:34 Ben Goodger: Get done. Andrew Mayne: I've noticed that a lot of people were thinking like, well, we still have browsers. Andrew Mayne: That was a question. Andrew Mayne: Are we going to have browsers? Andrew Mayne: And it seems like browsers are going to be here to stay for a while. Andrew Mayne: Is that something you both feel? Darin Fisher: It's a tool that people reach for a lot. Darin Fisher: You get a lot of things done on the web and using a browser. Darin Fisher: It's it's hard to imagine that not being a a big part of how how people use their computers.

4:56 Darin Fisher: I think that Darin Fisher: You know, I've been we've been through many phases of the internet and many phasers phases of browser development. Darin Fisher: There was a time when, you know, here comes mobile, why why would anybody use their Darin Fisher: their laptop anymore. Darin Fisher: Why would anybody use a desktop computer? Darin Fisher: And yet people continue to use desktop computers. Darin Fisher: They reach for it for very different things, maybe. Darin Fisher: And now that they can also reach for their phone for certain things.

5:20 Darin Fisher: But the the web browser continues to be like a such an important tool. Darin Fisher: on your computer for how you get work done, how you do research tests, how you look for information and do that kind of work. Darin Fisher: You know, substantive work happens within the browser, happens on the web. Darin Fisher: Don't really see that changing. Darin Fisher: If anything, I see that growing. Darin Fisher:, because it's a it's just like conduit to all the world's information. Darin Fisher: It's such an easy platform for people to bring experiences Darin Fisher: and make it available to everybody.

5:48 Darin Fisher: And the browser just makes that so easy. Ben Goodger: There's something sort of interesting about it where like every Ben Goodger: Of all of the sort of technological advancements that we've had over the past you know 25, 30 years, you know, with the web,, there's something very durable durable about the browser where like even if you look at this most recent wave of generative AI. Ben Goodger: you know, with with ChatGPT launching, it launched on the web. Ben Goodger: It's you know, I think very powerful reflection of the capabilities of this platform.

6:15 Darin Fisher: And the platform itself is amazing. Darin Fisher: I don't really need to recount all of the ways it's amazing, but the fact that it's this very inherently open platform. Darin Fisher: you know, content is published to an an open platform, an open internet where anybody can stand up a browser to conse that content. Darin Fisher: There are real no gatekeepers when it comes to the web, which is a really remarkable aspect to it. Darin Fisher: So people can freely publish information and peop people can freely go and find that information.

6:41 Darin Fisher: And so it's it's allows it to just blossom and grow and evolve in different ways. Darin Fisher: And then it's very natural that you might want to take something like an LLM and point it at it because now it can, on your behalf, try to understand it and help you navigate it. Darin Fisher: So the idea that Darin Fisher: it can do all that means it just makes it so much easier when you're trying to take advantage of all that information that's out there as a user. Darin Fisher: Here it is. Darin Fisher: It can go and find it for you or understand it for you or explain it to you.

7:07 Darin Fisher: I just want to say I think it's been really interesting to see the evolution of the web. Darin Fisher: You know, we got started in an era where, you know, it was the coming off of the dot com boom, right? Darin Fisher: the the the the needs of the browser back then were different. Darin Fisher: The kinds of things people were doing on the internet were different. Darin Fisher: They weren't totally exploring. Darin Fisher: And then over the course of time, as we've worked on browsers, the kinds of things people tried to do in the browser was just so much more.

7:29 Darin Fisher: If you go back to like Darin Fisher: early two thousands you had the evolution of like these more advanced web applications. Darin Fisher: Like you you know, I remember marveling at Google Maps when it first launched. Darin Fisher: The fact that you could just scroll and pan through a map so effortlessly. Darin Fisher: And then goes on from there, you know, all the different kinds of web apps that people take for granted. Darin Fisher: Things like YouTube or, you know, I'm gonna list a lot of Google apps because I worked at Google, but you know, Gmail, Google Docs, all these things, the kinds of things that Darin Fisher: I mean I can do all of that in my browser.

8:00 Darin Fisher: It's kind of amazing. Ben Goodger: It's becomes sort of like this this operating system for your life on your laptop kind of deal. Darin Fisher: Yeah, and it pushes the what the browser needs to be able to do, right? Darin Fisher: And so this Darin Fisher: Era that we you know developed Chrome in was an era where people were already pushing the boundaries of what Darin Fisher: you could do inside of a browser. Darin Fisher: But they had good reason to do it because the web being this platform where it's so easy to put new experiences onto the internet meant there was a lot of motivation to do that.

8:29 Darin Fisher: And you want to, you know, developers are being very creative and how they could push the bounds of the what the browser could do. Darin Fisher: But fast forward to today, and it's it's like you have all that. Darin Fisher: That's this foundation. Darin Fisher: And now just think about like Darin Fisher: how m you know it's got the world's gotten more complicated. Darin Fisher: You know, I think there's a lot of opportunity for it to feel overwhelming, the amount of complexity for people. Ben Goodger: Well actually I think you know even going back a few years Ben Goodger: Like I remember when I was a kid and my my school friends and I we'd trade shareware with each other on floppy disks as you did back at that point.

9:03 Ben Goodger: and my mind is just not meant to retain certain types of information. Ben Goodger: And so all of the things like the command line for how to to run like your unzip tool or, you know, however that worked, this just it was just something that felt entirely bizarre to me. Ben Goodger: And so in that sense, the web was Ben Goodger: kind of a really refreshing take on that. Ben Goodger: It was something where I could just go and click on things and and explore without having to sort of understand the underlying nature of the machine.

9:27 Ben Goodger: And view source. Ben Goodger: That's that's true. Ben Goodger: But what I Ben Goodger: What I find with, you know, where the future of technology is going is that, you know, when we have these AI assistants Ben Goodger: that are attached to your computer, I think we'll find that we make that computing capability much more accessible to more people who aren't necessarily experts. Ben Goodger: You know, even in Ben Goodger: you know, maybe not just even in terms of like how an operating system works or how a browser works, but even how individual websites work.

9:57 Ben Goodger: You can express yourself more naturally as to like how your intent what what your intent is, what your goal is, and then the system can kind of figure out. Ben Goodger: you know how best to accomplish that for you. Andrew Mayne: Yeah it seems like there was a lot of ideas about what the web could be and and part of it is that Andrew Mayne: A lot of standards were things that were sort of decided after the fact or we had to sort of go here and do that. Andrew Mayne: And then there was things that would have been nice to have like the semantic web if we made sure that everything was sort of annotated and you did that, but just in the real world and corporate world, it's often hard to do that.

10:28 Darin Fisher: And now did you think you'd see a world where, hey, we could have LLM sort of understand this and make that Well, I think it's amazing to see this is like kind of the magic of of these modern AI models is that they are really able to interact with Darin Fisher: things the way we interact with them. Darin Fisher: So systems and that's that's that's of course the world is designed for people with eyeballs and and mouth and on the com on the online people with Darin Fisher: mice to click on things or, you know, fingers to tap on things.

10:56 Darin Fisher: And so when you talk about the semantic web, of course it would be really nice if people would publish websites that were more Darin Fisher: you know, inherently understandable by machines, but their motivation is to go where the users are. Darin Fisher: And as much as we we make a push for websites that are more accessible and Darin Fisher: and you know to screen readers and whatnot, the reality of course is that that's just not where developers spend their energy first and foremost, right? Darin Fisher: And it's usually an afterthought to make sure that you make everything extremely accessible.

11:25 Darin Fisher: So kind of the beauty of these AI models is that they kind of meet the technology where it where where users are. Darin Fisher: You know, technology that's designed for people to conse. Darin Fisher: So you take a look at the way that it interacts with language and understands language, it can interact with language the way we interact with language. Darin Fisher: self-driving cars, they can interact with the roads and the and the systems of transit the way that we interact with them. Darin Fisher: And I think that's kind of the beauty of these AI models is that they can they can be developed to Darin Fisher: for this world that was designed for hans.

11:55 Darin Fisher: And so that extends naturally to the browser. Ben Goodger: I think it's it's not necessarily that we predicted exactly 100% how all of this would play out, but there's some very powerful ideas in that original internet. Andrew Mayne: Mm-hmm. Ben Goodger: where like there was this idea that it was, you know, structured data that would be read and interpreted by a machine and then presented to the user in some way. Ben Goodger: And so with the original web, there was this idea Ben Goodger: of a user's agent, a user agent, and that's a browser.

12:22 Ben Goodger: And then that you know takes that that machine readable content and then applies some presentation preferences to it. Ben Goodger: Maybe you like your font to be a little bit bigger so it's easier to read. Ben Goodger: Maybe you like it a certain style or weight or other stuff like that. Ben Goodger: And it doesn't. Ben Goodger: That was back in the original web was that idea. Ben Goodger: And so I think that that carries forward in today's era actually very, very well. Ben Goodger: And you can view where we are today as just sort of the natural Ben Goodger: endpoint or a continuation of that that journey.

12:49 Darin Fisher: Evolution of the user agent, right? Darin Fisher: So back in the day you even in Netscape browser you could write a cut what was called a custom style sheet or a user agent style sheet. Darin Fisher: You could override Darin Fisher: the colors of any website and people who maybe were who were more sophisticated would know how to do that. Darin Fisher: Later on browser extensions kind of made that a more universally available kind of thing. Darin Fisher: People could write an extension, share it with other people more easily.

13:11 Darin Fisher: But it just makes a lot of sense now to like empower an LLM to be able to go and on your behalf, as as Ben said, to really supercharge that user agent. Darin Fisher: To be able to do more things on your behalf. Andrew Mayne: Yeah, there's there were a lot of interesting ideas, I think, going back at kind of at the dawn of all of this. Andrew Mayne: And you look even the names of some of the tools like Gopher and Watson and Sherlock and whatnot, and how it was kind of more proactive, the idea that, as you mentioned, these are sort of tools that don't just Andrew Mayne: aren't docent viewers.

13:37 Andrew Mayne: And I think that we kind of take the browser for kind of granted in the idea that it just sort of like it just shows me the website. Andrew Mayne: And I can see where it's helpful for Andrew Mayne: You two probably haven't spent most of your careers working in the space of browsers and trying to understand that. Andrew Mayne: And it seems like there's like an inordinate amount of complexity there that's invisible. Andrew Mayne: Could you give me an example of like, you know, the kinds of things you have to deal with when you're trying to figure out how to make something work?

14:01 Darin Fisher: Oh man, browsers are maybe surprisingly complex. Darin Fisher: I don't even know where to begin. Darin Fisher: I'm I'm amazed at how much Darin Fisher: work there is and how much technology goes into building a browser. Ben Goodger: It's basically like a an app platform or a mini operating system that's running on your desktop. Ben Goodger: So Ben Goodger: Everything, every discipline of computing, it feels like there is like you can nerd out on some aspect of the browser. Darin Fisher: I was just having a conversation over lunch with one of the engineers on our team explaining how Darin Fisher: our OWL works, which is our embedding of chromium that runs out of process.

14:34 Darin Fisher: I was explaining the rendering model for this and it kind of led to a conversation about Darin Fisher: how Chrome first worked when we first built it and then how the advent of GPU accelerated rendering evolved and now fast forward to the way it all works today and what we're trying to do with OWL. Darin Fisher: and just sort of the depth of complexities there and and you know I could go on and on actually. Andrew Mayne: Well it it is interesting because I think that people kind of overlook like Andrew Mayne: Kind of the browser wars led to technologies like running node on servers to actually do stuff, which is I think nobody even thought would happen, but because just trying to make these things much more efficient and faster.

15:15 Andrew Mayne: And I again I kind of you know marvel that anything works at all. Andrew Mayne: And looking at some of the technical stuff you have released on ChatGPT Atlas. Andrew Mayne: and understanding that it's not just a plugin, it's not just a thing that adds a ChatGPT sidebar. Andrew Mayne: Could you explain a little bit more about the architecture? Ben Goodger: So from a design perspective, I would say that Ben Goodger: We wanted to imagine the entire experience with ChatGPT at the heart of this thing. Ben Goodger: Not just, I mean, you know, we have a ChatGPT extension as well that you can install in Chrome, for example, but there's some limits to what that can do.

15:50 Ben Goodger: And so when we approach this from a design perspective, we wanted to just be really empowered to look across the entire browsing surface. Ben Goodger: And I think, you know, maybe like Ben Goodger: you know, two to five percent of what we want to do is there today. Ben Goodger: but we think that this being able to to own the whole browser experience in this way gives us the opportunity to to weave that ChatGPT magic. Ben Goodger: in throughout. Ben Goodger: And that includes things, for example, like on any text field you can sort of invoke ChatGPT and have it help you write.

16:22 Ben Goodger: And then as it is helping you write Ben Goodger: That is, you know, your personalized ChatGPT. Ben Goodger: You know, it can sign your email as you because it knows you from your other use of ChatGPT. Ben Goodger: And so being able to build it in a way that enables these very like richly integrated use cases it felt very important to have a browser as opposed to Ben Goodger: you know, just an add-on for for an existing app. Darin Fisher: And it gets to some of like the foundational stuff. Darin Fisher: When ChatGPT is at the core of this thing and you you enable things like the memories feature, it means that Darin Fisher: you can ask this thing, "hey, what was that thing I was looking at again?"

16:57 Darin Fisher: And it's going to know. Darin Fisher: And it's going to help you. Darin Fisher: Like who hasn't had this this sort of experience of Darin Fisher: Oh yeah, "I remember I saw some video or I saw something. Darin Fisher: What was that again? Darin Fisher: How do I get back to it? Darin Fisher: I want to share it with somebody else." Darin Fisher: Traditionally you might go through your browser history or your YouTube history and scroll through there trying to find it or you're like, what was that? Darin Fisher: tweet again that I saw or I I was looking at a recipe with my son on the weekend.

17:22 Darin Fisher: It was what was the third Buffalo Wings recipe that we found that I wanted to make. Darin Fisher: How do I find it again? Darin Fisher: And just to be able to easily recall it, because this thing is able to do that so effortlessly, it's a side effect of it just being there. Ben Goodger: Probably the most in probably the Ben Goodger: Probably what I would say is the biggest advantage for doing this, and especially in the way that we've done it, is how we thought about integrating this agent capability.

17:49 Ben Goodger: And this is really where having our own concept of browser, including what it means to have a collection of tabs. Ben Goodger: If you think of your regular browser window, that's a collection of tabs. Ben Goodger: Then you can also imagine that your agent has a collection of tabs. Ben Goodger: Maybe each instance of the agent that you have chosen that you've asked to go off and do something for you, you might have like five of them each running on different problems. Ben Goodger: And each one of those has its own collection of tabs.

18:12 Ben Goodger: And of course they're not showing up on your top tabs because you didn't open them, but it nonetheless has them and it's working through them and it's getting information from them and it's processing it and taking action on your behalf and clicking on things and all that sort of stuff. Ben Goodger: That is the sort of functionality that you can have when you go and you design a system like this sort of end-to-end. Ben Goodger: You can invent all these abstractions. Darin Fisher: And you had this in the very, very first version.

18:36 Darin Fisher: I remember when when I Darin Fisher: joined Ben to work on this and he had already had sort of this idea the this idea that we would be able to segment tabs between the tabs that are the user's tabs. Darin Fisher: and that tabs that are that the agent is working on for your behalf. Darin Fisher: And that kind of shows up in the product today when you start an agent task. Darin Fisher: you go out it goes off and it's gonna work on whatever you asked it to work on and it might need to open some additional tabs.

19:01 Darin Fisher: And instead of those tabs just appearing in your tab strip and and perhaps Darin Fisher: feeling a little discombobulating because like where are all these what are all these tabs? Darin Fisher: it it has just sort of acculated some work in the background and when it's done then it presents it to you and it Darin Fisher: Tabular form, you can go and click through and see what it actually did, or you're just happy with the outcome and you really didn't need to see all the intermediate steps. Darin Fisher: And so I think it's kind of powerful this idea that it the agent has its own workspace Andrew Mayne: I would say for many people using this on the surface it seems pretty easy to understand.

19:32 Andrew Mayne: I've got a browser, I've got ChatGPT, but we also have agent mode. Andrew Mayne: What is an agent task? Andrew Mayne: What is not? Andrew Mayne: What would be a ChatGPT task? Andrew Mayne: Could you explain that? Ben Goodger: Yeah. Ben Goodger: So Ben Goodger: Agent mode is basically you're inviting ChatGPT to take action on the web on your behalf. Ben Goodger: And so maybe you are looking at a website and you would like to do something on that site, but you're not quite sure how to do it. Ben Goodger: What you can do is you can just ask ChatGPT directly.

19:58 Ben Goodger: If you're, let's say, you're on a spreadsheet and you want to synthesize a pie chart and you don't know how to do that. Ben Goodger: You can just say, hey, make a pie chart with this data. Ben Goodger: and it will go off and it will figure out how to use that software. Ben Goodger: Now if you can think about sometimes some of the software that you use, it can be pretty complicated. Ben Goodger: So just being able to ask in natural language in your own words what you want to see. Ben Goodger: And then you could just sort of sit sit back and watch it take over and it starts moving the mouse around and doing stuff like that for you.

20:22 Ben Goodger: It's pretty, pretty amazing. Darin Fisher: And and and you could see how it's going to do it. Darin Fisher: So actually you can learn how to now make that pie chart because it's going to show you. Darin Fisher: Which is pretty cool. Andrew Mayne: I found it pretty useful. Andrew Mayne: Like I like I like to study memory methods and stuff and I have to do a thing where you have to have like a system for decks of cards and stuff. Andrew Mayne: And I didn't want to have to paste in a bunch of like Andrew Mayne: card emojis.

20:43 Andrew Mayne: And I'm like, can you just go do this for me? Andrew Mayne: And it's like magic. Andrew Mayne: It's like witchcraft. Ben Goodger: One of the fun fun things I've seen people do around the office is they'll have written a doc and then they'll ask it to take a review pass on their doc and like add some comments. Ben Goodger: And so it'll actually go into your doc and it can use sort of the integrated commenting tool of whatever docent editing system you're using and it will just add comments as if it was a collaborator.

21:07 Ben Goodger: Yeah, it's really amazing. Darin Fisher: I mean, just we of course being software engineers, we experienced the model critiquing our code. Darin Fisher: And over the past year, just amazing to see how much better it's gotten at that. Darin Fisher: Like in the beginning, and it was not always the case that it would find things that were useful. Darin Fisher: But it's these days I'm like, this thing is sharing important, like amazing nuggets that are saving me from you know shipping bugs. Darin Fisher: And I can just, you know, I can see the analogy to like reviewing any docent that I might have and just asking it to to go and give me some some style feedback or, you know, maybe some grammar suggestions or like Darin Fisher: you know, tone suggestions and I I just it's very exciting to think about how any tool you're using on the internet you could ask this invoke this agent and ask it to interact with that in the same way that I would or somebody else would

21:55 Darin Fisher: And just see what it would do. Darin Fisher: And maybe you learn from it or whatnot. Andrew Mayne: One of the things that's come up a lot during my conversations with the the teams inside OpenAI is how much they're using Andrew Mayne: the tools. Andrew Mayne: You know, they're using GPT-5, GPT-5 Codex to do that. Andrew Mayne: And how has that affected you? Andrew Mayne: And do you think that's going to create an accelerated product cycle? Ben Goodger: So absolutely. Ben Goodger: Couple a couple of anecdotes on this one.

22:22 Ben Goodger: you know one of the top Codex users at the company is on our team and Ben Goodger: They're just sort of like raw productivity in terms of like PR output is like off the charts, you know, but as a result of using this tool. Ben Goodger: And I'm, you know, it's really exciting to see what Darin Fisher: With good PR output. Ben Goodger: Yes. Ben Goodger: So it's really exciting to see what experienced engineers can do with these tools because they can it can both sort of explore an area, help you explore an area, decide if something is worth doing.

22:49 Ben Goodger: and then you apply your judgment, you kind of tell it what you want it to do, and it goes off and does it. Ben Goodger: And then for folks like me who maybe spend less time coding than I used to, Ben Goodger: I can also have it go off and and prove some stuff out. Ben Goodger: So like everyone on our team is able to contribute. Ben Goodger: You know, our product managers are producing PRs, our designers are producing PRs. Ben Goodger: because of these tools. Ben Goodger: And so I'm like a true believer.

23:11 Darin Fisher: Yeah. Darin Fisher: I did a for before GA, I did this week-long refactoring to try to unlock a certain feature that we were trying to ship. Darin Fisher: And then I had one more to do. Darin Fisher: And this time I asked Codex to do it, and it was done within the whole project was done within an hour. Darin Fisher: And it was of similar scale. Darin Fisher: And I was able to tell it, hey, just do this other one kind of like I did that one. Darin Fisher: So I had shown it the way and I just asked it to do this other task that was very similar.

23:35 Darin Fisher: And it was it was almost one shot. Andrew Mayne: One of the the promises of really capable code tools that are able to write multiple languages, porting code from one language to another. Andrew Mayne: We saw with Sora and how, you know, they said, hey, Android's. Darin Fisher: Bring it into Android. Andrew Mayne: Yep. Andrew Mayne: Yeah. Andrew Mayne: And people were like, oh great. Andrew Mayne: When will that? Andrew Mayne: Oh like, oh no, it shipped. Andrew Mayne: No, no. Darin Fisher: I mean actually ChatGPT's been amazing at doing cross-language translation for quite a while.

24:00 Darin Fisher: I mean coding languages. Darin Fisher: So and you know we're building bringing this product to Windows now and we're actually going to be using Swift, which because we are a bunch of the team is full of Swift experts and We we we are excited to have a shared common code base and Andrew Mayne: Swift in Windows? Ben Goodger: Yeah, Swift on Windows. Darin Fisher: And so Darin Fisher: I'm not I'm you know I think it's very in my pr past experience I've s I've been I was marveling even years ago at just how good ChatGPT was at being able to essentially generate code for me in Swift that was Darin Fisher: that did not exist on the internet.

24:37 Darin Fisher: So it was taking code that maybe was written for. Darin Fisher: NET and could could translate it to Swift. Darin Fisher: for me and I was just I was marveling at its capability or or to generate a bunch of obscure WinRT code that's norm normally a very tedious C code with lots of Darin Fisher: GUIDs and all kinds of things that are very detailed,, but it was all just spitting out this code and saving us just an enormous amount of time. Andrew Mayne: Yeah, I Andrew Mayne: had Codex CLI spin up a Swift app without ever having to go into Xcode to paste anything in and it was work just right out of the box.

25:12 Andrew Mayne: It really impressed me. Darin Fisher: So it's it I mean it Darin Fisher: It's it's like kind of like one of the strengths of these models. Darin Fisher: So the fact that you know if you can ask the right question, get the right prompt, and it can and if it's on the right path and like how to build something, it can do it in any language. Darin Fisher: That's really not a problem. Andrew Mayne: So I've been using this and I've been switching it to agent mode to do stuff. Andrew Mayne: And I know sometimes I can just leave a tab and go off and do something else.

25:37 Andrew Mayne: And sometimes it's like, hey, if you leave this tab, I'm gonna pause. Andrew Mayne: What's going on there? Ben Goodger: Yeah, so this is Ben Goodger: Sometimes you'll have asked the agent to do something that's very sensitive. Ben Goodger: You know, an example is it's looking at your email. Ben Goodger: and we would like you to keep your eyes on the road, so to speak. Ben Goodger: You know, I have a car that has a sort of an auto drive feature and it wants me to pay attention to the road. Ben Goodger: It's helping me drive, but it's not gonna let me like check my phone or you know take a nap or something like that.

26:03 Ben Goodger: And so it has a little camera that's watching my eyes, is making sure that I'm paying attention. Ben Goodger: So you can kind of view this sensitive mode and in agent mode as kind of like that. Ben Goodger: It wants me to pay attention to this tab while it completes, just so that I feel like I have a good level of control over it. Ben Goodger: And in fact, if you look at the bottom of the tab. Ben Goodger: you'll see that there's a little bar that has a big red stop button in it. Ben Goodger: And if you've ever ever been in a machine shop, you'll know that the machines there have these big red buttons on them.

26:28 Ben Goodger: If suddenly it starts to do something that you don't want it to do, you just whack that button and it stops Ben Goodger: And so that's the idea. Ben Goodger: Just just just keep an eye on it, watch it go, and you can always take over if you want to do it yourself. Darin Fisher: Yeah, we put a lot of thought into making sure that these features Darin Fisher: help you feel in control of the experience and take away some of that maybe uncertainty when you want to go use them. Darin Fisher: For example, on top of what Ben mentioned, there's also the signed out Darin Fisher: method of using agent.

26:58 Darin Fisher: So if you want to start without it being in an authenticated session, meaning it doesn't have the cookies required to even access your email, you could do that. Darin Fisher: And I think that can be a great way to kind of try some things and do it where you're learning, like how does this thing actually work? Darin Fisher: And you might then hit a point where in order to take the next step with agent, well actually it would be helpful if it were authenticated. Darin Fisher: And so then you might try doing a task where it does benefit from having your cookies.

27:26 Ben Goodger: You might not remember the probably the first time you actually run agent Ben Goodger: It shows the screen, it explains how all of this stuff works for you. Ben Goodger: So you can like if you read through that, you'll see sort of the choices that you have and you'll learn about how to use them. Andrew Mayne: Yeah. Andrew Mayne: I have about a half million unread email. Andrew Mayne: I'm ready to go full auto. Andrew Mayne: It can't do a worse job than I have so far. Ben Goodger: You might find it just hit select all archive.

27:48 Andrew Mayne: Yeah. Andrew Mayne: Declare bankruptcy. Andrew Mayne: Yeah, I could have somebody to blame. Andrew Mayne:, but it has been it's been super helpful for me because there've been times when I'm trying to surface an email and the keywords just don't work or the results are too many and just being able to go in and say Andrew Mayne: find this thing about that. Andrew Mayne: It's saved me nerous times. Ben Goodger: And so one of the other things that we did with Agent as well, because there are times when you'll want to keep an eye on it.

28:14 Ben Goodger: is that we and I'm I'm pretty proud of what the team was able to come up with here is to make it like very visually compelling. Ben Goodger: and so there's, you know, all of the little little sparkles and and pixie dust and so on that appear around it as it as it's working. Ben Goodger: it's pretty cool. Ben Goodger: so yeah, love to to see more people try it out. Andrew Mayne: Yeah, it's fun to watch that. Andrew Mayne: And in also with ChatGPT too in agent mode, I've I've said that I could probably watch a live stream of just watching these systems solve problems because it's it's like how it's made, but watching Andrew Mayne: computers do it.

28:45 Andrew Mayne: It's exciting to see where this headed. Andrew Mayne: I also sort of wonder what's it going to be like when you know there's going to be a lot of different AI-powered browsers out there. Andrew Mayne: And also if we have to think about like what is what is the ecosystem like when most of my tabs are opened by my agent and not me and somebody's trying to capture my attention. Ben Goodger: The way agent works right now is that it's only good it's only like running in response to your request. Ben Goodger: and so if the agent is doing something, it's because you know at some level you asked for it.

29:18 Ben Goodger: Pages that it opens actually have some limitations. Ben Goodger: so like you might be used to browsing around the web and you'll see some page, you know, show a pop-up window saying, give me like notifications permission so that I can sort of spam you with updates. Ben Goodger: Never click. Ben Goodger: on that anybody. Andrew Mayne: Nobody's ever intentionally clicked on that. Ben Goodger: Yeah. Ben Goodger: The agent tabs can't do that. Ben Goodger: They're actually blocked from doing so there's a bunch of stuff like the design of the system to avoid you accidentally ending up in that Ben Goodger: that state.

29:45 Ben Goodger: Now of course you're free, you know, when you browse to a website and you're asked for a notification permission, if you want to receive updates from that site, it might be your calendar. Ben Goodger: Right. Ben Goodger: You're free as a user to go and like say, yes, I want this, but the agent won't ever do that on your behalf. Andrew Mayne: It's an interesting world where we think about part of the beauty of the early web was the serendipity. Andrew Mayne: Oh, I found this other thing. Andrew Mayne: I found these other links.

30:06 Andrew Mayne: But I think then that kind of got sort of weaponized against the user where basically Andrew Mayne: you try to do a thing and it's hard to do a thing. Andrew Mayne: And I think we got to ask you. Darin Fisher: Yeah, actually it's really interesting. Darin Fisher: I don't know if this is where you're going with that, but like a lot of websites want to just keep you on their website. Darin Fisher: Maybe they'll run ads which would take you off. Darin Fisher: But otherwise they kind of keep you in that lane.

30:25 Darin Fisher: One of the amazing things about the side chat or the model being present there and the agent even is just that you can ask it questions about that site where the answer might be something on a different site. Andrew Mayne: Mm-hmm. Darin Fisher: And so it makes the web bigger for you. Darin Fisher: It helps you not just be stuck down that that rabbit hole that you were on, but to Darin Fisher: help bridge you to something more useful to you maybe or more helpful. Darin Fisher: Yeah, I know you have some good stories on this.

30:49 Ben Goodger: There's something just wonderful about the Ben Goodger: I call it beautiful chaos of the web where you kind of don't want to always be stuck in the same place. Ben Goodger: You want to be able to embrace the diversity of the web and all of the content that's on it. Ben Goodger: So yeah, I love that. Ben Goodger: I love that you can do it as well without having to leave the site. Ben Goodger: You know, you can do it right there on the side and then you can choose to go somewhere else. Ben Goodger: But it it's sort of Ben Goodger: There's this aspect of I know with Wikipedia, you can go on these like multi-hour journeys through content.

31:16 Ben Goodger: that's really only a that's like a feature of Wikipedia, whereas I feel like the Ask ChatGPT sidebar gives you that ability for like the web at scale. Ben Goodger: And so it gives you the ability to ask questions about random sites and then go off in different directions and that sort of thing. Darin Fisher: I mean, this is extremely useful if you're looking for certain kinds of products and you find yourself onto one product page for one company. Darin Fisher: or one you know vendor but now you can be like well what else is out there and the model can say well here there's some other sites to go check out that is related to this and off you go now your your world has gotten bigger right Andrew Mayne: I've had some more.

31:48 Andrew Mayne: Wonderful discoveries with both videos and books that I couldn't find through the YouTube search engine or the Amazon search engine. Andrew Mayne: I found places where I Andrew Mayne: Because ChatGPT understood a bit more about what I was looking for, what I was really trying to find. Andrew Mayne: And that was like it gave me more utility out of those sites. Ben Goodger: That's actually another Ben Goodger: Like so I for ChatGPT as a whole, like the personalization features, the fact that it sort of learns more about you the more you use it.

32:13 Ben Goodger: has been like a super popular feature of ChatGPT. Ben Goodger: With Atlas, you know, this extends to to this your browsing activity, like your your sort of web history. Ben Goodger: And this and so this allows the browser to create these these browser memories, which Darren pointed out before is kind of something you can use to help you get back to a site if you kind of can't remember it later. Ben Goodger: But it also helps in situations like with the agent. Ben Goodger: You know, I'm a United Mileage Plus member and so I tend to like to look for flights on that site.

32:45 Ben Goodger: it would be very tedious if every time I asked the agent to go and do something like that. Ben Goodger: if I had to tell it and always use United Airlines. Ben Goodger: But it kind of knows from my browsing my browser memories that I'm a frequent user of United. Ben Goodger: And so it will just go there. Darin Fisher: Yeah. Darin Fisher: It helps you in the forward queries. Darin Fisher: Yeah. Darin Fisher: Because it's it's like now this search experience has so much more context about what matters to you.

33:09 Darin Fisher: So it just it ends up being a lot more efficient. Darin Fisher: Right. Darin Fisher: Saves you a bunch of time because you don't have to tell it as much again and again. Ben Goodger: So I feel like that's something that helps me a lot. Ben Goodger: I think some people probably have, you know, different preferences around th these things as well. Ben Goodger: So there are controls where people can go and see and control what Ben Goodger: What memories are are used to personalization and you can turn it off entirely.

33:29 Andrew Mayne: And you also have too when you use it, and I don't go into these tabs as much. Andrew Mayne: I'm starting to do that more because I realize they're there, is I can go to images, I can go to news, and I have kind of like a search engine. Andrew Mayne: And that's the the Andrew Mayne: The thing I'm trying to sort of understand is it's a browser, but is also opening eye heading towards its own search engine. Darin Fisher: Well, part of that comes from the fact that when you're building a browser. Darin Fisher: people come to that browser with existing intents, like navigational intents, or the the the idea that they do want to look for images, right?

33:57 Darin Fisher: Or they want to see a certain kind of Darin Fisher: subset of information. Darin Fisher: And so we brought those those controls into the the landing page of chatgpt. Darin Fisher: com so that it would be both familiar to people but also useful in the way that they're they're used to, right? Darin Fisher: We want to make sure people didn't feel like they're so out of, you know, that that that we didn't want people to have to learn so many new things in order to be successful using this product. Darin Fisher: We wanted them to have a lot a good dose of familiar Darin Fisher: tools and familiar sorts of things and but and anyways these are just useful.

34:29 Darin Fisher: For many people, search and browser just very connected, almost one of the same. Darin Fisher: And Darin Fisher: You know, it's so it's very important to to internalize that as we're building this experience. Darin Fisher: I think it's very powerful that, and I was touching on this before, that as people Darin Fisher: search and use the browser in maybe a very normal way, they're also learning about that there's a model there that's going to respond to them. Darin Fisher: So you get the a set of chips across the top, which is like quick links to go to where you were trying to go perhaps.

34:58 Darin Fisher: These these different tabs where you can click on to see like familiar different kinds of subsets of information, but also this model response coming in Darin Fisher: And so you start to, using a product in a normal way, you start to learn that there's a there's another way or that there's a superpower that this thing's providing. Darin Fisher: And it's some of it is just the normal ChatGPT experience that people are used to. Darin Fisher: But not everybody's using ChatGPT to the fullness. Darin Fisher: And so when you and when it's core and central to the experience, we have an opportunity to present that to people as part of their normal journey.

35:29 Darin Fisher: And I think that's really cool, similar to side chat. Darin Fisher: Of course you have to activate it, but it's right there. Darin Fisher: Ask ChatGPT and you might be curious and now you kind of unlock the superpower. Darin Fisher: But it's right there. Andrew Mayne: Interesting experience for me was the the very first day when I started using it. Andrew Mayne: And I look at this and I'm under trying to understand, okay, this is basically it's it's an app that has a browser and ChatGPT. Andrew Mayne: It's not like we just sort of Andrew Mayne: glued those things together.

35:55 Andrew Mayne: It's sort of like they're both there and there's a deep connection to the ChatGPT. Andrew Mayne: And I asked it to, could you add a bookmark for, you know, Amazon? Andrew Mayne: And then a moment later the bookmark appeared. Andrew Mayne: And that was a really kind of special moment to sort of understand what happens when you're the LLM deeply understands the system and is able to make those kinds of changes. Ben Goodger: Very excited about this. Ben Goodger: I think from a just like a conceptual transformation point of view, we're moving to a world where you can just tell the computer what you want.

36:28 Ben Goodger: in like whatever way you want to tell it. Ben Goodger: Simplest way possible. Ben Goodger: Just tell it. Ben Goodger: And so what this means for making computing more accessible to more people is just like really profound. Ben Goodger: And that's like the company's mission is to make AGI beneficial to all of hanity. Ben Goodger: And we take that really seriously. Ben Goodger: And I think being able to transform computing in ways like this that might seem very small on on face of it, they add up to something, you know, far more profound.

36:52 Ben Goodger: and so yeah, that we're we're excited about that kind of thing. Darin Fisher: Some of my first experiences with ChatGPT as a user was really this idea Ben's talking about. Darin Fisher: You know, I was comfortable, happy just sitting there doing my Google searches, but sometimes I didn't quite know what Google query to type in. Darin Fisher: And, you know, when I when I realized I could ask sort of a really poorly formed question to ChatGPT and it would come back with Darin Fisher: makes some sense of what I asked what I said and it would it would give me something that maybe now I could query Google for.

37:20 Darin Fisher: That's how I first started using ChatGPT. Darin Fisher: And then I started to realize over time that like Darin Fisher: Well, why am I not just asking it in the first place? Darin Fisher: You know, and and it's sort of, I think for people, they all have like a, there's like a bit of a journey with new technology, right? Darin Fisher: We're all creatures of habit. Darin Fisher: We're used to the things, the way we work, and and it works well for us, the things we're used to. Darin Fisher: We're used to it, so it's not a problem.

37:42 Darin Fisher: And but as you maybe explore something new, you start to see, oh, there actually is a better way. Darin Fisher: And for everybody that journey is a little different. Darin Fisher: And so for me, one of the things I was most excited about with Atlas was this idea that when you're typing into the address bar that that the default is ChatGPT because for me Darin Fisher: that actually makes sense for most of what I'm gonna do. Ben Goodger: And this is one of these things where I feel like now when I don't have access to that, correct, I feel like there's like this little bit of friction.

38:10 Ben Goodger: Like it takes longer now because then I've got to oh I've got to go find my ChatGPT tab in another browser and like figure out how to get at that and do that. Ben Goodger: Whereas with Atlas you can just like open a new tab and start typing. Darin Fisher: The old way was a much more manual way. Darin Fisher: This way is a much more I don't have to be as like clever about what I ask. Darin Fisher: I can just give some I have a problem. Darin Fisher: Yeah, I have a problem. Darin Fisher: I can say it in a much more simple way.

38:31 Andrew Mayne: I know that I'm still having trouble kind of context switching and understanding that it's not just a URL search bar or just an empty keyword search, whatever that literally I can ask it for things and not just have Andrew Mayne: you know, you know, well what is the capital of Nepal and not just have that pop into a Google search box. Andrew Mayne: Right. Andrew Mayne: And that's the thing now and be like, oh yeah, when I go type in the thing, if I type in the URL, I get the URL, but I can also type in kind of my query.

38:55 Andrew Mayne: And do that, but that's still taking me time to adjust. Ben Goodger: Well, just as a like a general rule, like I find sometimes modes can be Ben Goodger: a reflection of some of the limitations of the system underneath that that, you know, at the end of the day, hans don't understand. Ben Goodger: And so I think the North Star for us with so much of this stuff is can we just help you arrive at the right place? Ben Goodger: You know, regardless of you needing to know, I should put it in this mode or I should put it in that mode.

39:21 Ben Goodger: Like that is sort of the struggle. Ben Goodger: It comes down to like how do you want to use this tool? Ben Goodger: And so we want to make this thing something that you know if you just go in as Darren was saying before. Ben Goodger: you know you can just kind of tell it what you want, maybe this half-formed thought, and it will will give you something good. Ben Goodger: It will help you figure out the problem. Ben Goodger: Now of course there are ways that, you know, if you are our Ben Goodger: a user that understands some of the underlying capabilities of the system.

39:45 Ben Goodger: We want to give you the option to invoke those too to bring them down and help you. Ben Goodger: And that that's sort of an efficiency gain that you can get. Ben Goodger: But this certainly the system shouldn't require Ben Goodger: that you know all of those sort of incantations. Ben Goodger: It should be able to just take what you say to it and give you something good. Darin Fisher: Yeah, I think it it reminds me back to like the early days of browsers in the era when people would install like a toolbar for their search engine.

40:10 Darin Fisher: And y you know, and that meant they had yet another box on their browser, right? Darin Fisher: And Firefox had a dedicated search box for doing your web search. Darin Fisher: But back then, as much as people were very used to that and very comfortable with it, you know, you have one box to type URLs and one box to type search queries. Darin Fisher: when we were working on Chrome, we were like, why why have two boxes? Darin Fisher: Why do people have to stop and think about which box to type it into? Darin Fisher: Just give them one box.

40:36 Darin Fisher: Now if you look at Chrome, that's what its URL bar looks like, right? Darin Fisher: Just one box, and that's become the industry standard. Darin Fisher: But even on Chrome's new tab page, there's actually two boxes. Darin Fisher: There's one for Darin Fisher: the address bar at the top and then there's this box in the middle that's the maybe comfortable, familiar Google box, right? Darin Fisher: What we wanted to do and we kind of pushed ourselves with is like this whole topic of like, hey, you might have a conversation you want to start with the model, you might Darin Fisher: Be interested in in navigation, navigational query, but really you might not make up your mind about what your intent is until you start typing.

41:08 Darin Fisher: And just one box is a lot simpler. Darin Fisher: And so when you open up Atlas, you just have one box on the new tab page. Darin Fisher: And that was something from a design perspective that we really tried to achieve. Darin Fisher: And I think we were able to, and it keeps the whole system a little bit simpler for people. Darin Fisher: It might be a little unusual and and not what people are used to, but I think over time they'll they'll get to like it. Andrew Mayne: What was Andrew Mayne: Some of your favorite features, some of the things you're glad you're able to implement.

41:34 Darin Fisher: Oh man. Darin Fisher: You know, it's interesting whenever you get a chance to build a new browser. Darin Fisher: you had have having having worked on quite a few, you get a chance to sort of start over and reset on certain things. Darin Fisher: Not everything, because I think one of the core tensions is that people are used to their browser the way it is. Darin Fisher: But you do have a chance to rethink some things. Darin Fisher: So one of the features I worked on was Darin Fisher: the scrolling tabs feature.

42:00 Darin Fisher: It kind of came from an insight of that you know life tab life could be a little better if maybe new tabs all started all were inserted on the left or just on one side. Darin Fisher: You know, if you're a user who pins tabs in your browser, which is a pretty advanced use case, maybe a lot of people don't know that you can pin tabs to the tab strip in Chrome or Safari or other browsers, but it is a common thing. Darin Fisher: And if you pin a tab. Darin Fisher: It'll be pinned on the left side. Darin Fisher: And whenever, suppose that was like a Gmail tab.

42:29 Darin Fisher: When you click links, those new web pages would open just adjacent to that pinned tab. Darin Fisher: But if you press the plus button, the new tabs would appear off to the right. Darin Fisher: And what ends up happening is you're working throughout your day. Darin Fisher: You're going to Gmail, opening a a URL from there, you're Darin Fisher: Hitting the plus button, opening buttons, tabs on the right, and you're sort of acculating old tabs in the middle. Darin Fisher: And so it becomes a little bit painful to Darin Fisher: close all of the tabs to the right from the middle, you know, to to to clean up those tabs because and you just end up with a lot of clutter.

43:03 Darin Fisher: So Darin Fisher: Scrolling tabs was one of the innovations that we worked on to try to make tab management better. Darin Fisher: And it's like it's not an AI feature, but it's like when you have this opportunity to rethink browsers, Darin Fisher: It's an opportunity to rethink some of these primitives and try some different things.

43:23 Darin Fisher: Really exciting. Ben Goodger: Yeah. Darin Fisher: And we think about one of the things that I came to realize and appreciate only later is that if you have a browser that more naturally scales to having tons and tons of tabs. Darin Fisher: It means that certain kinds of things get unlocked for you. Darin Fisher: So everybody's, or many people are probably familiar with the ability to search for a specific tab that you might have open. Darin Fisher: There's a command shift A or a button for that in many browsers.

43:47 Darin Fisher: What with our with our system that a lot with scrolling tabs, the fact that it can allow for a lot of tabs to be Darin Fisher: acculate it without them all being in your face, you can still search across them and find these old tabs. Darin Fisher: So in a way it's like this this history of things you've done in your browser is there for you to search in a very Darin Fisher: familiar way because it's your it's command shift a it's right there and it you can have that capability without it being cluttered.

44:15 Ben Goodger: Darin is talking about tab search. Sometimes Ben Goodger: search over your tabs you can just type and that will find the tab that you want. Ben Goodger: But I think the most interesting thing about this feature is the fact that you don't need to close tabs. Ben Goodger: And so you can end up having, you know, my I think my browser, I've got like well over a thousand tabs open. Ben Goodger: And I just wouldn't think Ben Goodger: To for that to be possible. Darin Fisher: Or for you might think that that'd be a problem, right?

44:34 Darin Fisher: But it's not. Ben Goodger: No. Ben Goodger: Because the system manages the memory for you. Ben Goodger: Yeah. Darin Fisher: Now this is the scrolling tabs feature that is not on by default. Darin Fisher: And part of the reason why it's not on by default, as much as we think it's magical, and I'm a huge fan of this thing we built. Darin Fisher: It is also a little different than what people are used to. Darin Fisher: And we wanted people to not have to learn so many new things all at once when they're approaching this browser that is, you know, bringing all these AI capabilities.

44:57 Darin Fisher: But Darin Fisher: One of the amazing things when you have allow for thousands of tabs to be open means not only do you get to access it again with tab search, but the model can see them. Darin Fisher: The model can see these tabs. Darin Fisher: It means your working set can be very large, larger than what you might keep in your head naturally. Darin Fisher: But you know that there was something there, so you're going to ask the model for it, and it can go and interact with those tabs again. Darin Fisher: And I think that's actually pretty amazing.

45:23 Ben Goodger: I would be remiss if we didn't if I didn't mention for this question as well just the basic feature of Atlas, which is the Ask ChatGPT sidebar. Ben Goodger: This is something I get some value out of every single day. Ben Goodger: is I use the browser. Ben Goodger: I pull that thing open, I ask it to smarize a page if it's too long or I want to figure out like if I'm reading an article, like Ben Goodger: how it really matters to me in particular. Ben Goodger: Or if I have a question about something that's going on in the world, it can go off and do some research for me and come back with stats and facts and figures.

45:52 Ben Goodger: I've used it when I'm online shopping to make sure I'm looking at what really is the best deal on something that I'm looking at. Ben Goodger: I've used it to help spin up agent tasks to go off and automate some of my productivity workflows. Ben Goodger: I've had it build Ben Goodger: you know, Google Forms for me to help me like quiz my coworkers on the best way to design new features for the browser. Darin Fisher: I really like that example because if I remember correctly you said you also asked you asked Side Chat to help you Darin Fisher: come up with the outline of the right of the survey.

46:19 Darin Fisher: And then you said, hey, can you just put it into a Google form for me? Darin Fisher: And it did it. Darin Fisher: And I started really cool. Ben Goodger: Yeah. Ben Goodger: So it's just, you know, we talked before about Ben Goodger: bringing the power of ChatGPT with you everywhere you go on the web. Ben Goodger: And I think that sidebar really it's it's like having ChatGPT sitting on your shoulder, just right there to help, you know, give you some advice wherever you might need it. Darin Fisher: And sometimes even just simple things.

46:40 Darin Fisher: Like I was in Slack and there was some some somebody shared some text that was in another language, so I just selected it. Darin Fisher: And I right click and ask Side Chat about it and it translated it for me. Darin Fisher: And it was so much easier than having to you don't have to sit there and copy paste, right? Andrew Mayne: My favorite Andrew Mayne: use of that so far with the in the agent mode. Andrew Mayne: And I won't name the cloud provider, but it's a very big company that often you find out you run a lot of services and you forget what those services are and at the end of the month you get a bill.

47:12 Andrew Mayne: And it's a very confusing bill because you're trying to figure out I thought I shut this down. Ben Goodger: Isn't this all of them? Andrew Mayne: Or yeah. Andrew Mayne: Well some of them are a little bit or maybe been around longer and trying to parse through that's like reading a Soviet tractor manual. Andrew Mayne: And I went in Andrew Mayne: And I said, hey, I got this bill. Andrew Mayne: I think I shut it in. Andrew Mayne: I don't know what's going on. Andrew Mayne: Can you help me with it? Andrew Mayne: And I watched it navigate through the website, go to the page, find the different things I was doing, explain to me what the service was doing.

47:37 Andrew Mayne: I'm like, can I shut this down? Andrew Mayne: I'm like, yeah. Andrew Mayne: Shut it down and that was like a hundred dollar a month bill that was just saved through the Wow. Ben Goodger: That's really that's awesome. Ben Goodger: Another one I had Ben Goodger: as well. Ben Goodger: I was actually I had some some medical tests done recently and sometimes it can take a while. Ben Goodger: for the doctor to come back and explain to you like what they mean. Ben Goodger: And then me in the meantime, you have the patient portal there and you can access the sort of doctor language stuff there.

48:05 Ben Goodger: And I can't read that. Ben Goodger: It's not written in English, normal English. Ben Goodger: And you can have the thing you can ask and that will tell you kind of like what what that means for you. Ben Goodger: And I found that to be really helpful. Ben Goodger: So saving you money, helping you get some answers, this thing feels very, very I like I'm pretty convinced that this is the way increasingly the way that people will interact with information. Darin Fisher: very popular yet complicated HR tool or something like this.

48:31 Darin Fisher: And you're like, where's that thing again? Darin Fisher: And it and it it of course has studied the manual for you and can go and show you the way. Darin Fisher: It's kind of remarkable. Andrew Mayne: I feel like it it took me a long time to realize that once I had, you know, an iPhone that I always had a camera and a flashlight in my pocket. Andrew Mayne: And there are many situations where I'm like, ah, what was the name of this thing I saw in the store? Andrew Mayne: It's like, you could have taken a photo, you know, or man, it's dark.

48:54 Andrew Mayne: It's like you've got a flashlight. Andrew Mayne: And I feel with these tools, there's a lot of capability there that Andrew Mayne: We even saw that too a search. Andrew Mayne: You know, some of us were power users of search and other people are was a complete mystery. Andrew Mayne: And do you think we'll see a faster acceleration here that people are going to start sharing and understand how to use this? Ben Goodger: Yeah, I think th the stage that we're in with Atlas right now. Ben Goodger: is we think this is a really powerful tool, but we don't know all the ways in which people will use it.

49:19 Ben Goodger: And and that's kind of like the internet in that sense Ben Goodger: and so one of the reasons why we wanted to get this out, you know, when we did is we will just want to see how people use it and hear from people, you know, where it works well, where it sucks and needs to get improved. Ben Goodger: You know,, but I think over the course of time we'll get a better feel for that. Ben Goodger: I also think we'll need to help explain in more cases, like when the right time to use it could be. Ben Goodger: Because I think there's a part of building something that feels like magic in sort of making that magic real for more people in more situations.

49:49 Ben Goodger: And we don't want to have to have rely on people to always think I should ask this question at this time. Darin Fisher: Yeah, it's really easy to just we're creatures of habits. Darin Fisher: We use the browser the way we use the browser. Darin Fisher: We use our computers the way we use them. Darin Fisher: We don't always realize when there's a better way to do something or a more efficient thing that we could be doing. Darin Fisher: I f I feel this way about when I, you know, the process of learning how to use ChatGPT in the first place.

50:12 Darin Fisher: It's like it's just like realization, oh, I should just ask the model for that. Darin Fisher: it'll save me time, but I it takes a little while and there's a bit of a tipping point for people where they start at some point in their journey they're gonna learn that how to use these tools. Darin Fisher: And there might be some people who are early adopters and they can show the way and figure things out and share those ideas, but but also it's it's kind of like I think a lot of people haven't yet found found their way to how to use these tools in the best way.

50:39 Andrew Mayne: I find myself still trying to shut down tabs because I'm still, you know, I started using browsers in the era of getting the pop-up message you haven't many, too many browser tabs open. Andrew Mayne: Yes. Andrew Mayne: And now the you know compute and the capability and the management internally of these things is way advanced. Andrew Mayne: And so I think about like you know, I'm not optimized in many ways to use it. Darin Fisher: say non-AI feature of our browser was that we we kind of took a took a page out of the playbook of of mobile browsers, recognizing that, you know, your laptop's computing resources are not really limited.

51:14 Darin Fisher: You have a battery you care about. Darin Fisher: You know, so we put a limit on how many tabs would actually be backed by a live web page. Darin Fisher: Instead of trying to maybe the more traditional approach that desktop browsers would take, which is to just try to mitigate the cost of those background web pages that you haven't used in forever. Darin Fisher: we will just close them down. Darin Fisher: And if you go back to that tab, it'll get reopened. Darin Fisher: And we keep a reasonable limit there and we apply, you know, somewhat of a Darin Fisher: clever-ish caching algorithm to try to be smart about keeping making sure that the tabs you care about are kept in memory so s so as to sort of lessen the burden on your computer Darin Fisher: you might notice also with Atlas that it restarts super fast.

52:01 Darin Fisher: when you restart Atlas because of the way it's structured. Darin Fisher: the OWL process is separate from the Atlas process, OWL being our embedding of chromium. Darin Fisher: So the two can start up in parallel. Darin Fisher: We can restart Atlas very quickly with all your tabs and the data associated with them, but the web pages aren't loaded yet. Darin Fisher: And when you click on them, it'll bring those web pages back. Darin Fisher: But this way the whole system can stay fast, lightweight. Darin Fisher: And as we were able to build Atlas as a separate application from this from OWL.

52:34 Darin Fisher: Atlas is controlling OWL. Darin Fisher: OWL is projecting data into the rendering of web pages into Atlas, but Atlas itself can stay a relatively thin Swift application. Andrew Mayne: Why chromium? Darin Fisher: That's a fantastic question. Darin Fisher: I answered this question on on on the site formerly known as Twitter by saying that you know Darin Fisher: Web compatibility. Darin Fisher: So it turns out, unfortunately, or for better or worse, a lot of websites are only really designed to work with chromium.

53:09 Darin Fisher: There are features of major websites which I won't get into the naming names, but that are just not present if you're not using chromium-based browser. Darin Fisher: And the other reason is chromium extensions. Darin Fisher: Extensions built on top of chromium are very popular. Darin Fisher: And when you build your browser on top of chromium, it means those extensions will just work. Darin Fisher: And so we wanted to make sure that we were building a browser that, first off, works for people, that all the websites they care about will be supported and all the features of those websites will be supported.

53:38 Darin Fisher: And we want to make sure that they could install any of the extensions that they care about and that they're used to using in their browser. Andrew Mayne: And it seems like there's also you know we you know kind of non-technical people they hear Chrome and they hear chromium, but not understand there's like a Andrew Mayne: a really deep lineage that even goes further back, you also have WebKit and KDE and whatnot. Ben Goodger: So what I'd say is and you know I think there's like a lot of excitement. Ben Goodger: for, you know, from among the community for for to see like new rendering engines come about.

54:05 Ben Goodger: And that's certainly been part of the DNA of the web too over over the years. Ben Goodger: At the same time, just like Darin said, you know, when you build a new browser and you don't have that many people using your product just yet, it's it's you kind of just want the web to work as people know it today. Ben Goodger: And actually back when we were starting working on Chrome, we had the same concern. Ben Goodger: Like the, you know, chromium today, you know, has Blink, which is sort of its own rendering engine that's sort of Ben Goodger: Diverged from from that lineage.

54:31 Ben Goodger:, but at that point, like there wasn't much appetite for taking risks like that. Ben Goodger: and so that Ben Goodger: the chromium rendering engine is based on WebKit, which is the Safari rendering engine, which is open source, and that itself was based on an earlier rendering engine from the Linux Linux world called KHTML. Ben Goodger: and so yeah, it's really interesting to go back in time. Ben Goodger: Ben Goodger: So you can see how these sort of open source projects fork and branch and so on. Ben Goodger: Yeah.

54:55 Ben Goodger: There's code in chromium that comes from the Mozilla project too. Ben Goodger: Going back to the 1990s,, you can find this. Ben Goodger: This is true. Ben Goodger: It's lineage. Darin Fisher: So, you know, browsers are this sort of this layer cake of technology that's been built up over time. Darin Fisher: And you know, really where we are wanting to innovate is that next layer. Darin Fisher: where the the AI model comes in and how it's articulating and interacting with the foundational layers. Darin Fisher: And so far as building on top of chromium is like gives us this well-known foundation.

55:26 Darin Fisher: we built on top of chromium in a very different way than normally browsers would. Darin Fisher: Most browsers are just taking chromium and forking the UI. Darin Fisher: or layering another you know UI on top of chromium but running right in the same process as chromium. Darin Fisher: what that means is that if chromium's doing work, your application's not doing work. Darin Fisher: And so in the the structure that we we set up with OWL,, it means that Atlas is able to work in parallel with the rest of the Darin Fisher: all the activities related to rendering the web and and producing web pages, which is pretty cool.

55:59 Andrew Mayne: So if the browser part crashes. Darin Fisher: Yeah, if the if the OWL part crashes, if something goes wrong with that piece. Darin Fisher: Then you Al sorry, Atlas can restart OWL. Ben Goodger: So that's actually a really interesting thing. Ben Goodger: So I remember back when we were originally doing the design of Chrome. Ben Goodger: there was this thought of like, well, the web page might crash and therefore your browser should be around. Ben Goodger: And then because, you know, chromium has sort of become this very sophisticated platform for web pages, it itself has become super complicated and now like Atlas is this very lightweight Ben Goodger: frame around the outside that really is about like that core productivity use case of using a browser with ChatGPT kind of as this tool that you can bring down on onto any page and that's really where its focus is.

56:42 Ben Goodger: Whereas like the chromium, i. Ben Goodger: e. Ben Goodger: OWL piece, is able to focus on being that platform and then both parts are not. Ben Goodger: really th they're resilient to each other's, you know, difficulties that they might run into. Ben Goodger: This is true. Ben Goodger: in that sense. Ben Goodger: yeah, just actually like another fun fact about like open AI and the benefit of the system that that we built. Ben Goodger:, every engineer that starts at OpenAI merges code on their first day.

57:10 Ben Goodger: And if you think about how massive chromium is as a platform. Ben Goodger: You know, it's it's really super powerful, but it it's a lot of code. Ben Goodger: It takes a while to get all that code onto your device. Ben Goodger: Just a little bit complicated. Ben Goodger: Yeah, and and it takes a while to build it all. Ben Goodger: and so Ben Goodger: We tend to get our new hires in the afternoon as they've gone through all of their onboarding training. Ben Goodger: and then they have to merge a change.

57:33 Ben Goodger: so to be able to check out all of that code and build it and then make a change to the code in your first afternoon can be pretty tough if you have to do all of that. Ben Goodger: But because we have structured this in a way that they don't have to Ben Goodger: You can go and make a change to the Atlas side, get that checked out and built very, very quickly. Ben Goodger: Our engineers are able to be productive right away. Ben Goodger: Merge code on their first day and like ship features in their first day.

57:55 Darin Fisher: Related to this, so Darin Fisher: Always when you're starting a new project, you get to make new technology choices. Darin Fisher: You get to when we were starting Chrome, we got to say, what is the latest and greatest way to build code? Darin Fisher: Right. Darin Fisher: fast forward to starting Atlas, we're like, what's the latest and greatest way to build a native app on Mac OS? Darin Fisher: So of course we're going to be using Swift. Darin Fisher: We're going to be using Swift UI where where it makes sense.

58:17 Darin Fisher: And we're gonna be, you know, using all these, you know, the app is built in Xcode and just done in a very familiar way. Darin Fisher: So people who are are used to doing Swift development, maybe because they're building iOS apps, they can come in and just be instantly productive because this is Darin Fisher: Not a foreign code base, not a foreign system, you know. Darin Fisher: And and yet it's it's harnessing the power of chromium at the same time, which is super complicated. Andrew Mayne: When you look at this from the outside, a lot of people draw comparisons to go, well, you know, there was operator, now they're doing Andrew Mayne: ChatGPT Atlas, you know, is this going to be a real thing for them or is this another experiment?

58:54 Ben Goodger: So a browser Ben Goodger: You know, I think it's a it's a super core tool for productivity. Ben Goodger: and it's something that you need to be able to count on. Ben Goodger: And so my view for this has always been that this is like a long-term investment. Ben Goodger: And so that's the way that we're approaching it. Ben Goodger: There's a set of functionality that we've launched, which is sort of like the first phase. Ben Goodger: If I come back to browser history, I sort of say it's the Netscape 1. Ben Goodger: 0, if you like, of this new era of web browsing.

59:24 Ben Goodger: So there's going to be a lot of future improvements to come, features that we're building because people have told us about it from the initial set of feedback, things that we come up with, you know, through our partnership with research. Ben Goodger: whole host of new functionality that will come out over the course of time. Ben Goodger: The other thing that we hear from folks is they want to see this across different platforms. Ben Goodger: Yeah basically this browser isn't available for my Windows device or on my phone or that sort of thing.

59:48 Ben Goodger: So these are things that we are Ben Goodger: we're thinking about and and and working on. Ben Goodger: So there's like a a long roadmap of enhancements. Ben Goodger: And so we want people to Ben Goodger: Both feel confidence that this will get better over the course of time. Ben Goodger: It actually gets better every week when we push an update. Ben Goodger: And they will see it increasingly on more of the surfaces where they are. Ben Goodger: So definitely a long-term investment for us. Darin Fisher: Yeah, we got this app to the point where internally the users at OpenAI were we were seeing them enjoy this product.

1:00:19 Darin Fisher: And you know, and we wanted to we were at a point where the kind of feedback we were getting was, you know, Darin Fisher: "Why haven't you shipped it yet? Darin Fisher: Yeah, why haven't you shipped it yet?" Darin Fisher: Is exactly what I was thinking. Darin Fisher: Because it's like we weren't getting new feedback. Darin Fisher: Yeah. Darin Fisher: We we were we and we realized we're ready to ship this. Darin Fisher: We want to share this with the world. Darin Fisher: We wanna we wanna hear how other people are experiencing it.

1:00:44 Darin Fisher: And I think that you know this feedback's been all kinds of amazing. Darin Fisher: you know, obviously there's been you know people who have their pet feature that's missing or like when Ben said, you know, how come I can't act? Darin Fisher: You know, where's Windows Windows when? Darin Fisher: but you know the other day my my poor Darin Fisher: year old son came back and he's like, oh man, my friends at school, they love this browser, you know, kind of a thing. Darin Fisher: And I was asking, like, really?

1:01:06 Darin Fisher: What do they love about it? Darin Fisher: And he's and then they just he just was like talking about all the different AI features that they were checking out. Darin Fisher: I think it's really interesting to see that sort of spark of fascination from people, whether it's kids or you know people we work with or friends as as they sort of share their experiences with this thing. Darin Fisher: I don't know, I just love to see how people my wife was so giddy when she got first got to try Atlas when it when we did the friends and family testing.

1:01:33 Darin Fisher: And just to be able to go and explore researching some task and asking Darin Fisher: the the side chat about what she was looking at and it's just she had so much fun with it. Andrew Mayne: My wife loves it. Andrew Mayne: This is not a lie or an exaggeration. Andrew Mayne: The night that it came out, we're sitting in bed, I'm reading and I look over, how are you doing? Andrew Mayne: She says, I swear to you, I swear to you goes Andrew Mayne: I can't stop thinking about ChatGPT Atlas because for her, it was her first use of an agentic system like this.

1:01:58 Andrew Mayne: And to be able to go do these things, it was a huge unlock. Andrew Mayne: It was her favorite tool is ChatGPT now connected to the browser. Darin Fisher: Yep, exactly. Darin Fisher: Because just the tediousness that it takes away when you you're I'm looking at this website or I'm doing some research and I can just ask it now about the thing I was talking about it to it before, and now it can take this as context. Darin Fisher: And we can kind of keep going and research and whatever the topic is, it just becomes a lot easier when the AI m when the model is right there with you.

1:02:26 Ben Goodger: I think a lot of folks like struggle with Ben Goodger: you know how to do you know e you know sometimes like what seem like very complex tasks on certain websites. Ben Goodger: You know, one of those websites I think is you know if I'm on a spreadsheet on like a web-based pick your favorite web-based spreadsheet program. Ben Goodger: How do I visualize this data in a certain way? Ben Goodger: If you just have a tool there that you can ask, you know, drop in and help in a very consistent way. Ben Goodger: I think that's really Ben Goodger: really interesting.

1:02:48 Ben Goodger: yeah the other piece that I think is interesting, you know, related to to your wife's reaction is this is Ben Goodger: a lot of net new capability, I think, for a lot of folks in the world. Ben Goodger: I'm what I'm really excited about with this tool is that Ben Goodger: You know, our our model capabilities are always evolving. Ben Goodger: so at any given point in time, it's not like sort of the ultimate state of it Ben Goodger: but we kind of get to show people how this stuff works. Ben Goodger: and I think it with that build some more understanding, some more trust about Ben Goodger: you know, how this this this technology is working on on your behalf.

1:03:24 Ben Goodger: And I think it's it you know, even if we came up with the world's best model tomorrow that solved every problem perfectly in the way that you personally would have wanted that problem solved. Ben Goodger: you probably would still want to be able to come along for the ride and understand how that was actually happening. Ben Goodger: Just, you know, front for your own education. Ben Goodger: I think over time, I think when as your trust level builds, eventually you'll be you'll feel comfortable fully delegating very complex tasks to this technology.

1:03:51 Ben Goodger: But we're not at that stage yet. Ben Goodger: And so I think one of the things I'm really happy really happy and excited about is that people are able to come and observe the sort of the next step of this technology and you know watch it, see how it does, you know, tell us, you know, yellow dust when it doesn't work, you know, that kind of thing. Ben Goodger: But I think you can kind of get a feel for how it works. Ben Goodger: And as a result, like you will know like what it what it's going to be capable of and you'll kind of know what the controls are, like where you want it to stop doing something or you want to do something differently.

1:04:17 Ben Goodger: You can just tell it Ben Goodger: And so on. Darin Fisher: I think you can kind of dial up and down how much you use the model and the ways you use it in this product, but it's kind of like right there. Darin Fisher: It's easy to try again. Darin Fisher: And I think sometimes the magic, the magic I've felt with ChatGPT is Darin Fisher: is when it when it really works ever so well that I I'm like, oh I'm gonna go back for that, right? Darin Fisher: It's you have an you have those magic moments where it's like Darin Fisher: Oh my gosh, I'm gonna change my habits because of how this works, right?

1:04:42 Darin Fisher: And I think I think in this case it's like easy for people to Darin Fisher: use familiar patterns, right? Darin Fisher: I open the new tab page, I do a search, it lands me into an experience that includes some links I can click on, but there's also the model response. Darin Fisher: And so you start to learn that like maybe instead of that website I was looking for that was going to answer my question. Darin Fisher: It's just right there. Darin Fisher: And I can go and explore that and I can ask it another question.

1:05:08 Darin Fisher: You start to learn the power of this model just by virtue of using the product in a familiar normal way. Darin Fisher: And so I for me that's that's kind of exciting to see how people it might open the door to people starting to realize just Darin Fisher: you know, w what the capabilities of this model are. Andrew Mayne: Looking to the future, and first let's start short term. Andrew Mayne: I can understand how a Windows version you're gonna pretty much want parity of what you have right now in the Mac version.

1:05:35 Andrew Mayne: But when you talk about mobile, and it's one thing when I have a lot of desktop space and I can put a sidebar and have the chat thing there, but when you're talking on Andrew Mayne: Mobile browsing, as you you guys know, especially, is a very tricky thing and moving a search tab from the top to the bottom or whatever seems like a revolutionary change. Andrew Mayne: how are you thinking about that? Andrew Mayne: The mobile experience and also is it gonna maybe Andrew Mayne: Or are we going to be thinking more agentically in how we use these things?

1:06:02 Darin Fisher: Looks like so maybe fun fact, some of our initial explorations were actually on mobile. Darin Fisher: And part of the way we were thinking about it was really what does it mean to bring the model to the web? Darin Fisher: Right? Darin Fisher: And that can take many different forms. Darin Fisher: And of course, ChatGPT is exists as an app on your phones. Darin Fisher: You can imagine ways in which you might Darin Fisher: share to that the kinds of memories that have been generated by using Atlas, right?

1:06:29 Darin Fisher: So there's a lot of different flavors and forms in which mobile could come or how this could manifest on mobile, but at the basic level it's like Darin Fisher: What are some interesting you know we're gonna be looking at like how can we bring the web to the model and what does that make what makes sense on mobile? Ben Goodger: The UX you know may look a little bit different. Ben Goodger: You know, obviously as you point out there's sort of a different form factor there Ben Goodger: We've got very talented designers though, I'm sure that they'll come up with a good way to solve some of this stuff.

1:06:55 Ben Goodger: definitely I think on mobile, or at least I noticed through my own use. Ben Goodger: Like my use case is far more information retrieval. Ben Goodger: Like I have a question, you know, I actually I use the ChatGPT app a lot if I have a question about something I'm around or I point the camera at the thing and like, what is this? Ben Goodger: You know, that type of thing. Ben Goodger: So I think that there are a whole host of Ben Goodger: situations like that where there is web content that is part of that journey and we want to make sure that that that user flow that you have with Atlas, where you can view some web content, where you can ask follow-up questions and then go back and look at the content again, that that feels Ben Goodger: Very good.

1:07:31 Ben Goodger:, that's something that we're sort of in the midst of figuring out right now. Ben Goodger: And so, you know, like not too much more thought on it than that. Ben Goodger: Other than that, it's something that we're gonna want to make sure is like very feels very good. Darin Fisher: Yeah, I think we hear from people that the the importance of mobile, because, you know, they are doing work on their laptop and they want to continue in some fashion on their phone. Darin Fisher: Right. Darin Fisher: So you can start to imagine the kinds of space of possibilities there.

1:07:57 Andrew Mayne: Where are we going to be in five years with how we're using the web and how we use tools like this? Ben Goodger: So I would Ben Goodger: Love to be in a place where people think less about the particulars of the tools they're using and are more just expressing what they want to the system. Ben Goodger: And then the system is smart enough. Ben Goodger: to understand how to respond to that in a good way. Ben Goodger: And so in that sense, we can be, as you know, as hans, we can be focused on Ben Goodger: the the highest you know the the questions the highest order piece which is like what is the most interesting for me to do you know the model maybe can take over an agent can drive Ben Goodger: Maybe the less appetizing part of the work, the more more I use the word toil to describe some of that sort of grunt work of pulling information from a bunch of different sources.

1:08:47 Ben Goodger: Maybe it can do on do a bunch of things that just seem very difficult to you because you you've not done them before. Ben Goodger: It sort of knows how to do those things. Ben Goodger: And then you can be focused on the things that you want to do. Ben Goodger: so I imagine a world where actually there may be a lot of internet traffic in the future that is that is agentic. Ben Goodger: That may even be most of the internet traffic. Ben Goodger: I still see Ben Goodger: people as generating a bunch of traffic as well.

1:09:13 Ben Goodger: But that should be you know it should be efficient. Ben Goodger: It should be people should be focused on doing the things that they want to do and delegating more of this work. Ben Goodger: to more of this toil really to to agents that can take on a lot of that that other stuff. Ben Goodger: And then like if you have to Ben Goodger: Make a decision on a project and maybe your agent comes back to you and and gives you some choices. Ben Goodger: You know, if you're gonna take a vacation, do you wanna stay at this hotel or that hotel?

1:09:37 Ben Goodger: You can pick. Ben Goodger: Between them, you get to make a choice. Ben Goodger: But all of the sort of grungy clicking around and scouring the internet for these things, maybe it it took the first pass and presented you some choices. Andrew Mayne: We've talked a bit about how as users and developers of this tool you look at it. Andrew Mayne: If I was somebody who had an e-commerce site, if I was looking at I'm going to be putting information on the web and I know that Andrew Mayne: One, there'd been conversations, you know, for a while like what happens when LLMs go search the web and now we get into the world of agents when agents are using this and plus, you know, LLM-powered browsers.

1:10:11 Andrew Mayne: What advice, what direction would you be telling people to think? Darin Fisher: You mean the publishers? Andrew Mayne: Yeah. Darin Fisher: Yeah. Darin Fisher: I mean I think that it's really interesting. Darin Fisher: Like in some ways I think about the the Darin Fisher: Maybe a little bit related to what Ben was talking about. Darin Fisher: Like, you know, you see the more recent models, they've they've learned how to based on the query decide, hey, I should actually look at the internet to to to answer your question, right?

1:10:37 Darin Fisher: And so I think it's really interesting how these models can help you connect to publishers or in web apps and whatever content that's out there. Darin Fisher: Either Darin Fisher:, you know, giving you, you know, a snippet and like a citation to it so you can go deeper or or even just connecting you to it because that's actually what you, you know, if your intent was to navigate to a site, then it can help you get there. Darin Fisher: I think one of the things we've been Darin Fisher: exploring with Atlas is how to, for example, better handle and better serve navigational intents.

1:11:07 Darin Fisher: Sometimes people come to their browser with absolutely the intent of, I want to buy this product on this site. Darin Fisher: You know, and that's our job just to get you there as fast as possible. Darin Fisher: And so it's been actually an element of building Atlas was making sure we're serving those kinds of queries well. Darin Fisher: Other times you just want to probe the knowledge the knowledge of the model and have it go and research something for you. Darin Fisher: And sometimes that involves it needing to invoke tools to do that on your behalf.

1:11:34 Darin Fisher: And so again, sort of to Ben's. Darin Fisher: what Ben was talking about. Darin Fisher: It's I you know I imagine a world in the future when you don't have to be so prescriptive about what tool you want the model to use, but rather it Darin Fisher: has this incredible palette of tools that it can draw upon. Darin Fisher: And some of them can be, you know, actuating your browser, things like this. Andrew Mayne: Are we going to be using web pages in 10 years? Ben Goodger: I think so. Darin Fisher: I you know it's kind of a Darin Fisher: It's kind of this this fabric of like of this world where people are publishing through this this this this it's the core primitive how people are putting content out there, right?

1:12:08 Darin Fisher: So it's kind of the Darin Fisher: you know, the the the internet superhighway, all that kind of those analogies, but it is like this this open fabric for on which people can publish and I don't see that changing. Ben Goodger: It's the world's largest, you know, as you mentioned before, most open platform. Ben Goodger: And I think some of that power of openness is always gonna make it attractive for people to Ben Goodger: put content on. Darin Fisher: The way I look at it is these tools, yes, they are able to understand that fabric, understand that internet, understand the content that's out there, but they're also able to bring that content to people and connect people to that content.

1:12:41 Darin Fisher: And that can be very powerful. Darin Fisher: And again, it's all in service of what is that user's intent. Darin Fisher: I think it's fairly interesting to think about how we can do a better and better job of that, really serving the needs of those users. Darin Fisher: And ultimately, as people are putting content out there that's intended for people, if you're you're you're putting out content that's your, you know, it's a gallery for somebody to go shopping or something like this. Darin Fisher: We want to help people find that, help people get connected to that, help people with the journey that they're on.

1:13:07 Darin Fisher: And whatever that may be. Andrew Mayne: This is exciting. Andrew Mayne: Thank you for sharing this. Andrew Mayne: Any last suggestions, any power user tips? Ben Goodger: Yeah, definitely definitely the scrolling tabs teacher is like a favorite for both of us. Ben Goodger: Yeah, I would just say like Ben Goodger: challenge yourself, like I said at this point, very early stage, but challenge yourself with your curiosity on any given page. Ben Goodger: Ask a question on more pages that that you visit, and you might be surprised with what you come up with.

1:13:35 Ben Goodger: Awesome. Darin Fisher: And we'd love to hear from everybody about how they're experiencing the product. Darin Fisher: So please keep the feedback coming. Darin Fisher: Exactly. Andrew Mayne: Ben, Darren, thank you very much. Darin Fisher: Thank you. Darin Fisher: Thank you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 9"?

Andrew Mayne (Host), Ben Goodger (Guest), Darin Fisher (Guest).

What is "ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 9" about?

The discussion revolves around the introduction of ChatGPT Atlas, a new browser designed to enhance user interaction with the web through natural language processing. The team explains how Atlas integrates the capabilities of ChatGPT to enable users to seamlessly accomplish tasks, personalize their browsing experience, and engage more effectively with online content.

What is mentioned in this OpenAI episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including ChatGPT Atlas, Darin Fisher, Ben Goodger, Andrew Mayne, Chrome, GPT 5.1. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 9"?

The episode runs 1 h 14 min; the transcript is about 17,894 words in 158 timestamped sections.

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