Is ChatGPT’s Maker About to Launch Its Own Google Chrome Killer?

Oh, Google Chrome. You arrived in September 2008 and almost immediately took a scythe to all the other web browsers out there. I remember the week you launched because I was part of the growing cohort that’d converted to Mozilla Firefox years earlier, and you were ruthless in your quest for dominance.

And dominance you did achieve. “Chrome” is almost shorthand for browser in a way that I only remember Netscape as being in the ’90s. Could disruption once again be imminent?

Reuters scored an exclusive on July 9 that cited three anonymous sources saying OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, was tooling up an AI-centric browser to unleash upon the world. Have mercy.

Is ChatGPT coming for Google Chrome?

“The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks… and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web,” according to Reuters, who spoke with three people familiar with the browser. “It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google’s success: user data.”

A few numbers, courtesy of Reuters, that illustrate why this is an existential threat to Alphabet, the mega-company that owns Google. Three-quarters of Alphabet’s revenue comes from ad revenue, driven partly by people using Chrome.

ChatGPT has 500 million weekly users. If a chunk of them moved away from Chrome and over to OpenAI’s browser, it’d presumably make a noticeable dent in Alphabet’s revenue.

The three people Reuters spoke with chose not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to talk about OpenAI’s browser, and Reuters didn’t elaborate upon their relationship to the company. When contacted by Reuters, OpenAI declined to comment.

“The browser is part of a broader strategy by OpenAI to weave its services across the personal and work lives of consumers,” according to one of Reuters’ sources, and as reported by Reuters.