Beloved browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox may soon join Internet Explorer and the long-forgotten Netscape Navigator in the digital retirement home. A new generation of AI-powered browsers is taking its place, and for many businesses, especially small to medium enterprises, this is a breath of fresh air in terms of streamlining processes and creating efficiency.
But while many professionals are wondering how these AI browsers can optimise their workflow? corporate IT officers are asking an even bigger question: “Can we trust this?”
What AI Browsers Do
To begin with, let’s answer the first question. AI-powered web browsers are enhanced to assist, automate and personalise browsing experiences far beyond traditional search and navigation. While Internet Explorer, for example, simply decoded HTML and displayed websites, AI-enhanced Microsoft Edge has Copilot integration, which enables it to actively summarise, research, complete tasks, and interact with content in real-time.
And while Edge is impressive, it’s a relative laggard. Like Opera’s Aria, it’s still a traditional browser with AI sidebars. The cutting edge of AI browsers includes OpenAI’s Atlas (powered by ChatGPT), Perplexity’s Comet, and Dia. It’s unnerving when you use one of these truly AI-powered browsers for the first time.
Take Comet, for example. The browser’s home page looks and feels a lot like Copilot, with a taskbar where you can type in your request. There, you can ask Comet to scan your inbox and find emails from the last seven days that require replies and draft responses for each. You’ll then watch as Gmail opens in a tab, and the browser goes through your unopened emails and automatically starts generating responses to each. Granted, the replies are in generic corporate speak, but it all happens without your hands touching the keyboard.
Need to put together a quick pitch deck? You could also ask Comet – or Atlas or Dia (both of which are currently available for Mac iOS only) – to “Spin up a quick pitch workspace for a slide deck with free images,” and within seconds you’ll have new browser tabs open for Google Slides and the royalty-free image library Unsplash.
Browsing Safely
It’s breathtaking. And it leads to that second question about security. AI’s “agentic” capabilities (when it clicks and types for employees) introduce a whole new world of vulnerabilities. The computer now has autonomy, allowing it to perform complex actions on an employee’s behalf – often without their direct approval.
Now your company – or your IT team – mustn’t only worry about protecting the computer from malicious code; you also have to worry about protecting these devices from an AI assistant that could be persuaded to give away an employees private data or the company’s top-secret strategy, while someone went to grab a coffee while waiting for Atlas to write a TPS Report for Mr Lundbergh.
“Smart” doesn’t automatically mean “safe”. Researchers at the privacy-focused browser Brave recently set up a test asking Comet to summarise a Reddit page. A comment on the page contained malicious commands in hidden text, which led the AI to navigate to a window where the user’s Gmail was open to steal information. The phenomenon is called “indirect prompt injection”, and it’s a security nightmare.
Another nightmare? For an AI browser to act as your assistant, it needs to see and analyse everything you do online (just like any ChatGPT would). How much business information are you comfortable sharing with an outside tech company? And while you could switch off the default training model that shares your information to learn from your behaviour, how much of what’s “private” will really be private – or protected?
Good question. You should ask your browser. These AI browsers can make workflow more fluid and efficient, leaving you with more time to focus on business strategies and growth. But they can also leave your private business information vulnerable. This means it is important to have your IT team review these products and put necessary security measures in place.
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