OpenAI Prepares to Sunset Atlas AI Browser, Asks Users to Switch to Rival Chrome

OpenAI is shutting down its Atlas AI browser less than 9 months after launch. The company now plans to bring most of its browsing capabilities into the main ChatGPT desktop app and a new extension for Chrome, the browser it’s now encouraging Atlas users to switch to.

The company introduced Atlas in late October 2025 as an AI-first browser built around ChatGPT. It was designed to use AI to help you search for and summarize information from across the web, rather than through regular search engines.

OpenAI now says that Atlas will reach its end of life in August, and existing users will see prompts pointing them to the ChatGPT desktop app and to a Chrome extension that works similarly. The company expects many Atlas features, like reading long articles, filling out web forms, and coordinating tasks across multiple sites, to operate within these tools in a way that complements the existing ChatGPT experience rather than requiring a standalone browser.

This decision comes after OpenAI shut down Sora, its AI video generator. The company is focusing on fewer applications and using ChatGPT as its main interface, allowing its teams to cut down on “side quests” and focus on core work.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ExtremeTech’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis’s copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.