• by Laurie Sullivan , July 10, 2025

OpenAI reportedly will soon release an AI-powered web browser, according to people familiar with the strategy. The news came within hours of Perplexity releasing its AI web browser to subscribers -- separately challenging Google and Microsoft.

The name for OpenAI's browser has not been publicly revealed. The browser, however, is built on the open-source code Chromium, and is intended to challenge Google's dominance in the market. It is designed to keep some users interacting within a ChatGPT chat-like interface instead of clicking through to websites, two of three sources told Reuters.

This browser could pull from a massive number of data sources. ChatGPT is estimated to have 800 million weekly active users, including 15.5 million Plus subscribers and 1.5 million Enterprise customers. It sees 122.58 million daily users, processing more than 1 billion queries every day, according to a variety of sources.

Gartner Vice President and Analyst Nicole Greene believes monetization will remain at the center of features and functions across AI answers and generative search.

"The more users, the more data, the more potential revenue," she said. "We’re already seeing the push to monetize popular features to create additional revenue streams and leverage the user base."

Success with new advertising formats will depend on whether consumers find ads disruptive or if these formats support a better experience, Greene said.

Publishers will need to decide whether access to these formats is worth the cost, she said, and companies looking to insert themselves into the conversation will need to tread carefully to ensure placements and offers are contextually relevant to move customers along their journey.

But publishing may choose alternate paths, like new technology that allows them to block AI crawlers from accessing content without permission or compensation. This gives them more control over their content, but breaks the traditional models of revenue generation where search drove traffic to websites.

"In good news for publishers, we’re seeing the trend where consumers are more willing to pay for subscription-based channels," she said, pointing to Substack. Citing Axios, she said Substack reported membership base of more than 35 million users, with three million of them paying for subscriptions. 

Alphabet, Google's parent company, relies heavily on advertising revenue, but Google Cloud, hardware sales, app sales, and the category of "Other" also feeds the company, according to quarterly earnings.

A substantial portion of user data comes from Chrome, although it is a free product. It known to default into Google Search, driving traffic to the company's primary ad platform.

The browser is part of a bigger strategy, as Reuters has reported. AI is expected to launch some sort of hardware after paying $6.5 billion to buy io, an AI devices startup from Jony Ive, Apple's former design chief.

Similar to Perplexity's strategy announced Wednesday, an AI-based web browser will allow OpenAI to integrate Operator, and its other AI agent products, into the browser. 

When asked if consumers are ready for AI agents, Greene said AI assistants and copilots are early versions.

"This capability simplifies commercial processes by matching offerings with customer needs and intent," Greene said. "If consumers find that AI Agents help them find what they want and meet their needs faster, they’ll be more open to using AI Agents."

While consumers are mixed about their views on AI, 41% of consumers are willing to let AI apps and tools handle or assist them in some of their personal or household tasks, according to the 2025 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers aged 18 and older.

Some 44% of consumers in Gartner's study said they are willing to let AI apps and tools handle or assist them in shopping tasks. 

It appears a good percentage of consumers are ready, and companies are poised to change the direction of search, browsing, chat, shopping, media buying and advertising, so much so that tech and advertising will need to rewrite rules and procedures.