Atlassian staking a claim in the AI browser space with acquisition of a developer of AI-powered browsers

Industry interest has been piqued by AI browsers, which promote the idea that users can organize everything all in one place, instead of in multiple disparate tabs, and call on the assistance of AI agents to help.

Atlassian is making a play in this nascent space, with plans to acquire The Browser Company of New York, developer of AI browsers Dia and Arc, for $610 million. Other early entrants in this space include Perplexity’s Comet, Andi, Bagoodex, Komo, and You.com; OpenAI is also rumored to be working on an AI browser.

It’s an interesting move by a major player, analysts say, since many still struggle to understand just what AI browsers are and what they can do.

“They’re going for a niche here, but it’s a valuable niche, because there’s a lot of value in delivering productivity improvements to enterprise workflows,” said Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group.

Transforming browsers from ‘bystanders’ to AI-packed assistants

From Atlassian’s perspective, today’s browsers weren’t built for work, but rather for browsing, and each open tab “represents a task that needs to get done.” This results in a “forest of tabs,” Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes wrote in a blog post. Those tabs, he said, are “overwhelmingly” SaaS applications and documents.

“Your current browser wasn’t designed to help you with anything,” he noted. “It was designed in an era before SaaS and well before the current AI revolution.”

He called the traditional browser a “bystander” in workflow, with no awareness or understanding of context and priorities, treating every tab the same without connecting tools.

On the other hand, he said, the Arc browser has “reimagined” work with SaaS apps, while Dia has made AI, chat, skills, and memory a “core part” of the browsing experience.

Dia, which is now in early access, essentially allows users to chat with their tabs, write with the help of in-line copy editors, and consult with tutors, personal assistants, and customized shopping agents. Arc, which is available for download for Windows and Mac, adjusts to how users browse, allows them to customize their dashboards, and organizes everything they do online in one space.

As Cannon-Brookes noted, by bringing Dia and Arc into Atlassian, “we have the potential to change how one billion knowledge workers use AI to get work done in their browser.”

AI browsers have more context awareness

Info-Tech’s Jackson pointed out that, traditionally, users open Salesforce in one browser tab, an ERP in another tab, and a Microsoft Teams video conference in yet another. “The browser isn’t aware of that,” he said. “It’s just sort of serving as this blank slate.”

That’s the “magic” that AI browsers can bring, he said: it could be able to connect the data between email and various applications and workflows, and save users time dealing with all the tedious things they need to do between various systems.

“Now suddenly you’re looking at the browser as an operating system, and you’re launching all these different applications hosted within it, and you start to see that this is really an area where a lot of work is done,” said Jackson.

These types of browser could potentially direct users to the next steps in workflows and enable agents to talk to enterprise software systems and automate tasks involving multiple systems. Also, Jackson posited, it could filter out distractions (such as nudging you when you’ve visited Bluesky for the fifth time that day).

“You can think about all the managerial data that we can get out of that browser interaction,” he added.

But are there real enterprise use cases for AI browsers?

Still, this is very early, experimental days for AI browsers, analysts note.

“For me, they’re still a little bit of a head scratcher,” said Jason Andersen, VP and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “There are just certain tasks in a browser that people are so used to now.”

For instance, you could ask agents to organize your numerous open tabs, “but you can probably do that quicker yourself,” he noted.

Also, many current browsers are built on the free, open-source Chromium project from Google, and Chrome has a lot of “really cool extensions” and critical security integrations.

“[With AI browsers] you’re losing some of the cooler functionality of the Microsoft Edge browsers, Safari or Chrome,” said Andersen. AI browsers are “neat, you can see potential, an interesting proof of technology, but are they going to get wide adoption? Probably not — now.”

Jackson agreed that it is a “greener technology.” Also, he added, “let’s be honest, the Chromes and Edges of the world, they have their market, there’s not really too many compelling reasons to go and use other things.”

Generalist and traditional players will continue to be the norm, and it will likely be a “big challenge” for Atlassian to break into this type of market and sell customers on the value of changing web browsers from whatever free option they’re already using, he added.

“It’s not really a convention that exists right now,” said Jackson, “so they have that uphill battle of change management and getting everybody aware of this new approach to work.”

Atlassian and others trying to see what sticks

So in the grand scheme of things, the question is: Why fix something (the traditional browser) that isn’t broken?

“Natural language is a very powerful concept to users,” said Andersen. “It’s prompting a lot of vendors to look at ‘How can we inject more natural language into different types of interfaces?’”

For instance, with command line interface (CLI) tools, with natural language inputs users don’t need to have intimate knowledge of command syntax; they can simply type in directions.

Whatever Atlassian and others come up with could be a “killer app for an agentic browser” for very specific groups or niche users, Andersen acknowledged. But ultimately, he said, “[we’re] still in an age of experimentation and seeing what works and what sticks.”