A few weeks ago I was at a friend's for dinner. This friend happens to lead our browser design team. Lately, he's tasked with figuring out what an AI browser is: what it does, what it looks like, what level of evil it incites, etc. It’s understandably stressful. And so, he asked the table what we think.
I'm not sure why this friend thought I'd have some spark of clarity to offer deep into a Friday evening, and he got his comeuppance: "throw it in the ocean," I sputtered through olives. I'm helpful like that.
But actually, I haven't stopped thinking about it, and not just because the others at the table tried their best and I'm the worst. The question turned out to be weirder than it sounded. I don't know what an AI browser is good for. I can't shape it in my mind. And it seems like no one else really can, either. Why is this the thing that's so hard to imagine?
A Better Box
Maybe there's something wrong with the question itself. We keep saying "AI browser" like it's a new product category, but most of what's being built under that label isn't new. It's a chatbot in a sidebar, a slightly smarter search box, and a handful of features that don't quite know where they live yet.
An AI browser today usually means a lightweight assistant that can summarize a page, answer questions about what's on the screen, or run a web search for you. It sits off to the side, waiting to be needed. The interface is sparse, the responses are helpful, and the overall experience feels like a slightly more conversational command line. It's useful, but a little sterile. And more importantly, it's stuck in the same frame we've been using for decades: the browser is a vessel for search, and AI is a better way to fill it.
But don't forget, browsing isn't searching! A browser isn't a container for queries; it's the system where everything else unfolds. Your work, distraction, memory, spirals, habits, and hope. It's where your attention goes when you're online, whether or not you know what you're looking for. The browser's like your subconscious, only dumber.
It's where your forgotten intentions live. It's the place where you try to make decisions by piling up more information than any one person can reasonably hold. And it's where, often, you forget what you were doing in the first place.
Right now, the browser doesn't really comment on your runaway train of thought. But should it? (I hear your resounding no, let me finish).
The Knowledge Corpus
Think about what your browser actually witnesses. It's seen you search whether squirrels can get Lyme disease, then spend twenty minutes watching hydraulic press videos. It’s watched you open a tab to cancel a subscription, leave it open for six days, then finally close it after deciding to just pay forever. It's seen you search for how to write a resignation letter then immediately check flights to Iceland.
Your browser holds the archaeology of your attention span. Those tabs from three weeks ago about learning pottery are still there, buried under layers of work docs and whatever the algorithm said was trending. The browser becomes a kind of external memory; except it's a memory that never forgets and never organizes. It's a hoarder house of your own making!
But that’s okay, because the messiness reflects how we actually think. We don’t move through information in neat, linear paths. We circle, we backtrack, we get distracted, we make connections that seem random but aren’t. The browser’s chaos mirrors the mind’s chaos, and that’s probably why current AI browser attempts feel so off. They’re trying to impose order on something that was never meant to be tidy in the first place.
Mystics
If the browser is your subconscious, maybe the AI browser is your dream interpreter. A bit of a mystic. Something that helps you make a little more sense of what you're already doing by revealing the patterns. Say you've returned to the same essay three times. You're circling, and that's fine. But maybe it would help to have something that could gently surface the pattern. Not to correct you, or advise you, but just to show you what shape your behavior is taking.
This kind of AI wouldn’t live in a sidebar or prompt box. It would show up in the margins as a soft memory layer, a pattern-noticer, a companion with decent timing. It wouldn’t need a glowing orb or a special name. Just enough context to nudge, and enough recall to catch you in the loop. The dream version of the AI browser is, simply, good company.
What For
And yet we’re weirdly afraid to start over. The current system is not great, but heaven forbid we slow down and take a look at things. Why not rethink how people move through the web? Why not accept that not every interaction has a clear beginning, middle, and end?
We treat that kind of time where someone stops to notice, reflect, or rearrange as wasteful. It delays shipping and it’s hard to roadmap. It invites complexity we’d rather not face. But sometimes the best ideas live in the periphery, not the path. Some cognitive processes are supposed to be meandering. The goal isn’t to clean up the mess, but to punish us less for our humanity.
Start with what the browser is already quietly doing for people. What kind of cognitive load is it carrying? What kind of rhythms does it reveal? If browsing is a form of thinking, what’s the point in speeding that up with AI? Shouldn’t it help us understand the questions we’re really asking?
Maybe that’s what I should have said at dinner…
Of course, Danielle, this is another stirring take that I'll chew on for a while. Thank you. Your musings have me hoping that all of this progress, all of these incredibly poignant reflections, result in a future which keeps us, as humans, able to fail, try again, learn, and engage in discourse. Not debates. Discussions. If we ever lose our ability to effectively communicate with other humans, hold meaningful conversations, could AI help teach us how to do it again? Would a messy, unorganized AI browser remind us that it's ok our brains are messy and unorganized, too? I can hope :)