Two days after OpenAI’s Atlas, Microsoft is launching an almost identical AI browser

Microsoft rolled out a new batch of features for its AI assistant on Thursday, including an ambitious project which embeds artificial intelligence directly into one of its most central products. More than just an extension, the new CoPilot feature of Microsoft’s Edge browser is the company’s take on the long-rumored AI browser category — a smart and versatile AI assistant that follows you around as you browse the web.

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, even described the new product in these terms in the announcement. “The Copilot feature in Edge is evolving into an AI browser that is your dynamic, intelligent companion,” Sulaiman wrote in the announcement post. “With your permission, Copilot can see and reason about your open tabs, summarize and compare information, and even take actions like booking a hotel or filling out forms.”

The announcement comes just two days after a similar release from OpenAI, which unveiled its new Atlas browser. Of course, Copilot’s release has been planned for weeks, and the new Copilot feature has likely been in the works for months. No company came up with the idea of ​​an AI-assisted web browser. But the visual similarity between the two products is hard to ignore.

These are two very similar images. Copilot for Edge’s background is slightly darker, there’s text instead of a logo, and the close/minimize buttons follow Windows conventions instead of MacOS conventions. Beyond that, Copilot puts the ride-along feature in a new tab instead of split screen… but that’s about it. It’s pretty much the same product.

Part of the similarity is functional: people like clean browsers, and there are only so many ways to embed a chatbot window in the new tab screen. For users, the main difference will come from the underlying models, so maybe a little facial similarity won’t make too much of a difference.

Browsers usually look the same anyway. However, given the high stakes of the AI ​​race and the tense state of play between the two companies, it seems significant that we got both browsers in the same week.