The competition between web browsers has shifted from search dominance to artificial intelligence, with companies racing to build browsers whose AI assistants can act on users' behalf rather than simply display web pages. Google Chrome and Apple's Safari remain the market leaders, with Chrome's advantage largely stemming from its aggressive integration of generative AI into search, but 2026 has seen a surge of new entrants, ranging from startups to established tech firms, betting that browsers will evolve into task-completing assistants rather than passive windows onto the internet.

Among the notable alternatives are Perplexity's Comet, launched in July 2025, which acts as a chatbot-based search engine capable of summarising emails and scheduling tasks, though it remains largely restricted to a $200-a-month subscription tier. The Browser Company's free Dia browser can analyse a user's browsing history to answer questions and summarise content, while Opera's Neon, priced at $19.90 monthly, offers offline task completion. OpenAI's Atlas browser, launched last October, was shut down in July 2026, with its agentic features folded into ChatGPT's desktop app and Chrome extension instead. Y Combinator-backed Aside takes a more autonomous approach, operating across platforms like Gmail, Notion, Slack and banking sites to complete tasks using stored user credentials and context.