OpenAI's Making a Browser Now

Reuters reported back in July that OpenAI is "close to releasing" a browser. Sure they are. Every tech company thinks they can dethrone Chrome. Microsoft tried this exact same shit with Edge - made it the Windows default, forced updates on everyone. Edge is still sitting at 5% market share because nobody wants to re-enter 500 passwords just to switch browsers.

Here's what they're claiming: it's supposedly built on Chromium (because why reinvent the wheel when you can just fork Google's code) and will integrate their Operator agent thing. The idea is you can tell the browser to do stuff for you instead of clicking around like a peasant.

Why This Will Probably Fail

Every year some new browser promises to "revolutionize" browsing. Arc, Brave, Opera - they're all fighting for scraps while Chrome owns about 68% market share. Chrome didn't win because it was revolutionary - it won because Google shoved it down everyone's throat. Bundle it with Android, make it default on every Google service, control 71% of mobile OS market share, and boom - forced adoption.

Current browser statistics show Chrome commanding about 68% of the global market, Safari at 16%, Edge at 5%, and Firefox clinging to 3%. Everyone else is fighting over scraps.

The browser market isn't won by features. It's won by distribution. Google controls Android, the Play Store, and most web properties. They push Chrome everywhere. Microsoft tried the same thing with Edge and bundling it with Windows. Opera has tried everything including a built-in VPN and crypto wallet features. Brave has been pushing privacy and ad blocking for years. Arc tried innovative UI design and workspace features. Vivaldi targeted power users with extensive customization. None of them have made a dent in Chrome's dominance.

What They Actually Want: Your Data

OpenAI isn't building a browser to compete with Chrome's features. They want your browsing data. Google makes three-quarters of its revenue from ads, powered by knowing exactly what you do online. OpenAI sees that goldmine and wants in.

The Operator agent they're pushing is basically a way to watch everything you do and learn from it. It can "fill out forms" and "book reservations" - translation: it needs to see your credit card info, passwords, and personal details to do any of this. What could go wrong? Facebook got caught tracking users even when logged out. Google was reading Gmail contents to target ads. Now imagine giving an AI company access to literally everything you do online. Privacy advocates are already freaking out about AI data collection practices.

So here's what this thing supposedly does, according to OpenAI's marketing and some Reuters reporting. This browser is going to automate web tasks for you. I'm sure this will go perfectly.

The Operator Agent Reality

Operator is OpenAI's attempt at browser automation. It runs on their servers, not your computer, and supposedly can:

So supposedly this thing can fill out forms for you. Great. Can't wait to explain to my wife why the AI bought cat food when we needed cat litter. And booking reservations? Perfect for when you need a table for 18 people instead of 4. Every major site is going to start throwing CAPTCHAs at this thing within weeks.

The Reality They Don't Mention

Here's the fun part the marketing won't tell you:

Bot Detection: Every major website has sophisticated bot detection. Amazon, Google, Facebook - they're all actively trying to block automated browsers. Good luck booking that flight when the airline's site throws up a CAPTCHA every time your AI agent tries to click something. Just wait until you see "Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later." every fucking time you try to book anything.

You know those annoying "I'm not a robot" checkboxes and image recognition tests that pop up on every website? That's what reCAPTCHA looks like - and it's specifically designed to block automation tools.

Context Switching: AI models are famously terrible at maintaining context across multiple browser tabs and complex workflows. Sure, it can fill out one form, but try explaining why it booked you a hotel in Barcelona when you asked for Barcelona, Venezuela. Anyone who's worked with GPT-4 knows it loses track of context after about 3 tabs - I've watched it completely forget what site it was on mid-task.

Error Handling: When a human hits an error on a website, they adapt. When an AI hits an error, it often just... keeps trying the same thing. Enjoy watching your agent repeatedly submit the same broken form. I've used Playwright for 2 years - you spend more time writing error handlers than actual automation because every site breaks differently. Selenium users know this pain - half your code is just waiting for elements that may never load.

Pro tip: Never trust a browser automation demo. They always show the happy path where every click works and no sites have changed their DOM structure since the script was written. Real automation breaks when sites A/B test button colors - I spent a weekend debugging why our checkout automation kept failing, turns out the site was testing different button styles and our click selector was breaking 50% of the time.

Why Remote Browsing Sucks

Unlike other automation tools that run on your computer, Operator uses a remote browser running on OpenAI's servers. This means:

All your browsing data has to flow through OpenAI's servers, so every click has that lovely cloud latency. No access to your saved passwords, no local files, and completely fucked if their servers go down.

It's like using a VPN for everything, except the VPN company is actively watching and learning from everything you do. Cloud-based browser automation has been tried before - it's slow, unreliable, and expensive. I spent 3 months fighting with BrowserStack's remote browsers - expensive as hell and constantly timing out on you. Their free tier gives you 100 minutes total, which sounds generous until you realize debugging one flaky test burns through 50 minutes just figuring out why the element selector broke. AWS tried this with WorkSpaces and it never gained traction because clicking a button and waiting 500ms for it to register is torture.