Two days after OpenAI’s Atlas, Microsoft launches a nearly identical AI browser

Microsoft released a new batch of features for its AI assistant Thursday, including an ambitious project that builds artificial intelligence directly into one of its most central products. More than a simple extension, the new Copilot Mode of Microsoft’s Edge browser is the company’s take on the long-hyped AI browser category — an intelligent and flexible AI assistant that follows you as you browse the web.

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, even described the new product in those terms in the announcement. “Copilot Mode in Edge is evolving into an AI browser that is your dynamic, intelligent companion,” Suleyman wrote in the announcement post. “With your permission, Copilot can see and reason over your open tabs, summarize and compare information, and even take actions like booking a hotel or filling out forms.”

The announcement comes just two days after a similar launch from OpenAI, which showed off its new Atlas browser. Of course, Copilot’s release has been scheduled for weeks, and new Copilot Mode has probably been in development for months. Neither company invented the idea of an AI-assisted web browser. But the visual similarity between the two products is hard to ignore.

These are two very similar pictures. The Copilot for Edge background is a little darker, there’s text instead of a logo, and the close/minimize buttons follow Windows conventions instead of MacOS conventions. Beyond that, Copilot puts its “ride-along” function in a new tab instead of a split-screen… but that’s about it. It’s pretty much the same product.

Part of the similarity is functional: people like clean browsers, and there are only so many ways to integrate a chatbot window into the “new tab” screen. For users, the main difference will come from the underlying models, so maybe a little facial similarity doesn’t make too big a difference.

Browsers mostly look the same anyway. But given the high stakes of the AI race and the tense state of play between the two companies, it seems significant that we got both of these browsers in the same week.