The ChatGPT browser is already dead

OpenAI is already shutting down ChatGPT Atlas, its browser that could do tasks for you on your behalf, less than a year after launching it. Atlas was announced in October, but as part of its wave of news about ChatGPT Work today, the company confirmed that it will be “sunsetting” Atlas and is targeting an August 9th date for deprecation.

The shutdown follows OpenAI’s push to reduce “side quests” and catch up with Anthropic on productivity features. As part of that push, in March, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI planned to combine the ChatGPT app, Codex, and Atlas into a desktop “superapp” — ChatGPT Work appears to be the result of those efforts.

In a thread about the ChatGPT Work announcements, which includes an updated browser in the desktop ChatGPT app and a cloud browser for work mode, OpenAI’s James Sun said that: “All these capabilities were built on what we learned from Atlas users who took a leap of faith on a new browser. You taught us how agents can help make browsing and doing work on the open web better, and we are applying these learnings to these new products.”

Update, July 9th: Added previous reporting about OpenAI’s plans to combine Atlas with its desktop app.