OpenAI is already planning updates to Atlas - here's what we know so far

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• OpenAI is already promising updates to Atlas.
• The company's free AI web browser debuted on Tuesday.
• Fixes include multiprofile support and more user personalization.

Just one day after OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, its free web browser built around its popular chatbot, the company was already promising a slew of updates to improve user experience and boost competitiveness with the tech giants that have long dominated the online search industry.

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"We're really focused on building the best product for all of you, and since launch, the team has been heads down making it better," OpenAI's Product Lead Adam Fry wrote in a Wednesday X post. The post included an image of a list of what Fry described as "very short-term things" the company would be "fixing over the coming weeks." 

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

This was not a thoroughly detailed description of OpenAI's plans for the evolution of Atlas, but more of a rough-and-ready snapshot; it almost had the look of a hastily assembled to-do list that Fry or one of his colleagues had jotted down on the notes app of their iPhone as early user reports came flooding in. Still, it provides a glimpse into some of the technical developments users can expect, and how the new browser is likely to evolve over time.

What's on the post-launch fix list?

The third item on Fry's list, for example, is "multiprofile support." This probably refers to an option for users to create separate profiles, each with their own setting modifications, browser history, and linked applications. Competing browsers like Chrome and Safari already offer this feature. 

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Fry also wrote that OpenAI will "improve personalization of suggestions" within Atlas, something that the company has been working on across its AI tools more broadly: training them to generate outputs that are uniquely tailored to the preferences of individual users. This was one of the technical fixes that company CEO Sam Altman promised for GPT-5 following that model's underwhelming debut this past August.

Fry's list contained multiple items pertaining to Atlas' agentic capabilities. The browser currently offers an experimental "agent mode" for ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, which lets it reference a user's browsing history and autonomously execute complex web tasks, such as searching through travel sites to find flight options, drafting emails, or prepping an online order. 

For example, he wrote that the company would "improve under-triggering of ChatGPT using agent mode," or the system's ability to automatically use Agent Mode when that's an appropriate response to a user request. He also wrote that future versions of Atlas would come with more detailed animations of chain-of-thought reasoning for Agent Mode, enabling users to closely assess how the system is reaching a given output.

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Fry added in his X post that his team was open to receiving more suggestions from users on how to improve Atlas, and that there were additional planned fixes involving third-party partners that he wasn't able to publicly disclose.

A new future for browsers 

Atlas is a direct challenge to Google, Microsoft, and Apple, the tech giants that have long dominated the online browsing industry. 

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OpenAI is hoping it can sell a new model for web browsing -- one that's fundamentally different from the paradigm we've grown used to over decades, which is based on entering queries into a search bar and being presented with a long list of internet links. 

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Other companies, like Perplexity and Atlassian, are also taking on the long-standing browser regime with their own web browsers, building AI into their cores.