OpenAI plans to shut down ChatGPT Atlas in August
OpenAI is retiring its ChatGPT Atlas browser less than a year after announcing it, The Verge reported.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
2 min read
OpenAI plans to retire ChatGPT Atlas, ending an AI browser experiment less than a year after it was announced, The Verge reported. The decision matters because the company is putting browser functions into new ChatGPT Work products instead of keeping Atlas as a separate browser, according to The Verge and OpenAI’s James Sun.
The Verge reported that OpenAI confirmed the shutdown during a broader set of ChatGPT Work announcements. The company is targeting August 9 for Atlas to be deprecated, according to The Verge.
Atlas was introduced in October, The Verge reported. The browser was designed to let ChatGPT carry out tasks for users on the web, according to The Verge.
OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT Work announcements include an updated browser in the desktop ChatGPT app and a cloud browser for work mode, James Sun of OpenAI said in a thread cited by The Verge. Sun said those capabilities were built from lessons OpenAI learned from Atlas users.
Sun said Atlas users showed OpenAI “how agents can help make browsing and doing work on the open web better,” according to The Verge. He said OpenAI is applying those lessons to the new products.
The Atlas shutdown is part of a recent pattern of product pullbacks at OpenAI, The Verge reported. In recent months, the company has shut down Sora, its video generation app, and paused plans for a ChatGPT “adult mode,” according to The Verge.
The Verge reported that those moves come as OpenAI works to reduce “side quests” and catch up with Anthropic on productivity features. The company’s decision to retire Atlas places its browser work inside ChatGPT Work at a time when OpenAI is focusing more directly on workplace tools, according to The Verge.
OpenAI has not been described by The Verge as abandoning browser-related capabilities altogether. The reported change is that Atlas itself is being sunset while related features appear in the ChatGPT desktop app and work mode cloud browser, according to Sun’s comments cited by The Verge.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.