The Browser Is Becoming Your Personal Assistant: Here Are the Best Alternatives to Chrome and Safari
A new wave of AI browsers wants to do your tasks, not just show you web pages. Here is what is actually available, what it costs, and what you might be giving up for the privilege.
Key points
- Perplexity launched its AI browser, Comet, in July 2025, but access currently costs $200 per month.
- Opera released its AI browser Neon in May 2025 for $19.90 per month, letting it work even when your internet is off.
- OpenAI launched an AI browser called Atlas in October 2025 and shut it down by July 2026.
- Privacy-first browser Brave rewards users with cryptocurrency for choosing to view ads.
- Ladybird, led by GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath, is building a new browser from scratch with a Linux and macOS alpha planned for this year.
Your browser used to just show you web pages. Now it wants to run your life.
TechCrunch AI recently mapped the new wave of browsers competing with Google Chrome and Apple Safari, and the picture is striking. Every serious new entrant is betting that an AI agent, software that can carry out multi-step tasks on its own, will soon feel more useful than a search bar. Some of these browsers can book calendar invites, fill in forms, summarise emails, and shop for you, all without you lifting a finger beyond asking.
But that convenience has a price, sometimes literally.
The AI contenders
Perplexity's Comet is the flashiest entry. Launched in July 2025, it can summarise emails, browse pages, and send calendar invites on your behalf. The catch: it sits behind a $200-per-month paywall. A free waitlist exists if you are curious but not flush.
The Browser Company's Dia is free to download. It looks like Chrome but adds an AI chat tool that can see every site you have visited and every account you are logged into. That depth is what makes it powerful. It is also what makes it worth reading the privacy policy carefully.
Opera's Neon, released in May 2025 at $19.90 per month, is the only one so far that can keep working while you are offline, a genuinely useful trick for travellers.
OpenAI's Atlas lasted less than a year. Launched in October 2025 and killed by July 2026, its agentic features, meaning the ability to complete tasks on your behalf, were folded into the ChatGPT desktop app instead.
Aside, backed by startup accelerator Y Combinator, takes the boldest approach. It asks you to hand over your passwords, browsing history, and full browser context so it can automate tasks across Gmail, Slack, and even banking platforms.
What if you just want privacy?
Brave blocks ads and trackers by default and pays you a share of ad revenue in cryptocurrency if you opt into viewing ads. DuckDuckGo, the search engine that became a browser, recently added a chatbot and a stronger scam detector that catches fake crypto exchanges and fraudulent shopping sites.
Ladybird is the long shot worth watching. Built from the ground up by GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath, it will not borrow code from Google's Chromium project, the shared foundation most browsers quietly rely on. An early alpha version for Linux and macOS is expected this year.
Should ordinary users switch?
Not yet, for most people. The AI browsers are genuinely impressive demos, but the trade-off is real: the more an app can do for you, the more it needs to know about you. If you share passwords and full browsing history with an AI agent, make sure you understand who stores that data and for how long.
For privacy, Brave or DuckDuckGo give most users a meaningful upgrade over Chrome with almost no learning curve. For power users who want AI assistance, Dia or Neon are worth a trial, just read what you are agreeing to first.
