The AI web browser Dia is drawing inspiration from its predecessor, Arc, an earlier experiment in modernizing the web browsing experience that hailed from the startup known as The Browser Company. On Sunday, The Browser Company founder Josh Miller confirmed that the new AI browser will bring "Arc's greatest hits" to Dia, including things like the sidebar mode, and combine that with AI-native features like memory and agents.
The first browser wars were about speed and simplicity, the next one is about control. Every click, search and purchase is being absorbed into a closed ecosystem where algorithms decide what people see and how it is framed. Whoever owns that mediation layer owns the flow of information and the attention economy that depends on it. The goal this time is not faster browsing or better design, it's total dependency.
They got even chattier last week after OpenAI and Microsoft kicked the AI browser race into high gear with ChatGPT Atlas and a "Copilot Mode" for Edge. They can answer questions, summarize pages, and even take actions on your behalf. The experience is far from seamless yet, but it hints at a more convenient, hands-off future where your browser does lots of your thinking for you.
Perplexity's CEO Aravind Srinivas stated, "I reached out to Chrome to offer Perplexity as a default search engine option a long time ago. They refused. Hence we decided to build [the] Perplexity Comet browser."
