Last week, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, a web browser that promises to revolutionise how we interact with the internet. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, described it as a “once-a-decade opportunity” to rethink how we browse the web.
The promise is compelling: imagine an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that follows you across every website, remembers your preferences, summarises articles, and handles tedious tasks such as booking flights or ordering groceries on your behalf.
But beneath the glossy marketing lies a more troubling reality. Atlas is designed to be “agentic”, able to autonomously navigate websites and take actions in your logged-in accounts. This introduces security and privacy vulnerabilities that most users are unprepared to manage.
