Are We Entering the AI Browser Wars?

Hello,

This is Simon with the latest edition of The Weekly. In these updates, I share key AI related stories from this week's news, list upcoming events, and share any longer form articles posted on the website.

I recently got early access to Comet, an AI-native browser, and it’s become my default ever since. It’s incredibly useful to ask questions about the page you’re on directly from a side panel. Even better, it has an agent mode, meaning it can complete tasks for you. For example, I asked it to review my articles on Plain AI, suggest a social media content calendar, and then create the meeting entries in my Google Calendar. After I entered my password, it handled the tasks perfectly.

The big news this week, however, is that OpenAI has launched its own browser, Atlas. While search capabilities were added to ChatGPT last year, using them still involved a lot of copying, pasting, and jumping between tabs. With new browsers like Comet and Atlas, you have an AI chatbot at hand on every page you view. This gives your prompts valuable context, leading to more accurate and useful results.

This shift reminds me of the early days of the internet and portals like Yahoo, MSN, and Alta Vista. As we increasingly use AI to search the web instead of traditional search engines, the comparison feels apt. On that note, it can only be a matter of time before Google fully embeds its AI tool, Gemini, right into Chrome.

But the big thing for me though, is no matter how useful these new browsers might be, they encourage us to hand over a lot of information to the AI platforms. Are you comfortable with that?

Have you used either Comet or Atlas yet? Do you think you’d switch completely to an AI browser?

Four years in the making. One event that will change everything.

On November 13, beehiiv is redefining what it means to create online with their first-ever virtual Winter Release Event.

This isn’t just an update or a new feature. It’s a revolution in how content is built, shared, and owned. You don’t want to miss this.

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In this section, I highlight a real-world example of AI. This week I talk about Lego and Image Recognition.

India has put forward a draft regulation requiring platforms and creators to label AI-generated images and audio in very specific ways (e.g., a visible marker covering ≥ 10 % of an image; audio clips must carry an identifier during the first 10 % of playback).

Why it matters: It marks the first time a major market proposes specific requirements for AI-generated media. This could signal a new frontier in media transparency and regulation.

A new study by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in partnership with the BBC, found that nearly 45% of responses from major AI assistants to news queries contained “significant errors” and 33% had serious sourcing mistakes.

Why it matters: As AI assistants increasingly become a gateway to news and information (especially among younger users), their errors could undermine trust, spread misinformation, or distort public discourse.

According to recent reporting, AI tools (in listings, property analytics, and buyer behaviour prediction) are increasingly embedded in the housing market, and may be contributing to faster price growth and changed dynamics in house-hunting.

Why it matters: Often we hear about AI in tech labs or enterprise contexts — this is about real-world impact in the consumer space. It touches how everyday people interact with big sectors like real‐estate.

Thanks for reading, and see you next Friday.

Simon,

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