Recent release of OpenAI Atlas browser is a huge game-changer. Similar to ChatGPT initial release. Love it or hate it, here's what's going to happen:
- Chrome will have competition.
- AI-friendly UI will be the new expectation for modern web apps.
- Microsoft and Apple will launch similar agents on OS-level.
- Over time human interaction with apps will reduce to bare minimum - reactions, micro-blogging, comments, messages. Most of the complex flows will be handled by agents.
Even now, observing Atlas interacting with our new client UI (NEO) I can see the adjustments we'll have to make. Good apps will need thorough element labelling (alt, aria, tooltips, captions), keyboard controls and most likely some form of standardised API with flow instructions - like a JSON file that guides the agent. Much like the old "SEO archive" pages for search-engines.
The dark side of it, of course, is that all the anti-spam tools and settings will have to be dialled in constantly and with much more sophistication.
Comments
In fact, the Edge browser has had all of this for quite some time β ever since the Copilot button appeared on the toolbar. In any case, thereβs nothing good about this for website owners. When people first started talking about artificial intelligence and robots, we were told everything would be great β the robots would do all the work for us π and weβd be free to focus on creativity. But in the end, even now, musicians, programmers, photographers, artists, copywriters, content site owners, and even video bloggers are starting to suffer from all these innovations.