Microsoft Edge adds AI features days after OpenAI’s Atlas launch

Microsoft has expanded its Edge browser’s Copilot Mode with new AI-powered features that closely mirror capabilities found in OpenAI’s recently launched Atlas browser. The timing appears strategic, coming just days after OpenAI introduced Atlas, as Microsoft looks to maintain its competitive edge in the AI browser space despite both platforms ironically sharing the same underlying GPT technology.

What you should know: Microsoft’s latest Copilot Mode updates introduce three major capabilities designed to make web browsing more autonomous and contextually aware.

• The new Actions feature enables the browser to complete tasks independently, such as making restaurant reservations or automatically unsubscribing users from shopping newsletters by searching through email inboxes.
• A Journeys feature now automatically groups past browsing sessions into organized topics, allowing users to easily return to previous research projects with their explicit permission.
• Enhanced browsing history integration lets users make natural language requests like “show me that blue hoodie I was looking at last week,” with Copilot then displaying relevant tabs.

The competitive landscape: The feature overlap between Microsoft Edge and Atlas highlights an increasingly crowded AI browser market where similar functionalities are becoming standard.

• Chrome also offers comparable agentic features, suggesting these capabilities represent the new baseline for AI-enhanced browsing experiences.
• Atlas’s browser memories functionality directly parallels Microsoft’s browsing history integration, demonstrating how quickly competitors are matching each other’s innovations.

The big picture: Both Microsoft’s Edge enhancements and OpenAI’s Atlas browser rely on the same foundational GPT AI models, creating an unusual situation where competitors are essentially offering variations of the same underlying technology.

• Copilot Mode already includes features like a redesigned new tab page with unified search and chat functionality, natural voice navigation, and the ability to understand context across all open tabs.
• The rapid feature matching between platforms suggests the real differentiation will likely come from user experience and integration quality rather than core AI capabilities.

Why this matters: This development illustrates how quickly the AI browser space is evolving, with major tech companies racing to implement similar features while using shared underlying technologies, potentially leading to a commoditization of AI browsing capabilities.