If you regularly follow tech news, you have certainly already heard of Arc Browser. The latter has had some success, but in October its developer, The Browser Company, admitted that Arc is too different from traditional browsers and too complicated for many people to appeal to the general public. And instead of simplifying Arc, which might frustrate loyal users, The Browser Company decided to develop a new browser aimed at increasing people’s productivity.
In October, information about this new project was still quite vague. But this week, The Browser Company decided to say more and reveal the name of this project: Dia. In essence, Dia will be an artificial intelligence-centric browser. This will rely on recent advances in AI to save the user time, by automating searches or even repetitive tasks. “AI will not exist as an application. Or in the form of a button. We believe this will be an entirely new environment, built on top of a web browser,” The Browser Company says on the Dia website.
A browser designed for AI
In a video, the company also presents prototypes of functionalities. First of all, The Browser Company wants to reinvent the cursor, so that AI can be quickly accessed on any text field. For example, if the user is writing a sentence about the launch of the iPhone in 2007, he can request the artificial intelligence from his cursor to ask it to complete the beginning of the sentence with information which he would normally search for by opening a new tab and then a search engine.
The browser would also have a wizard built into the address bar. The second prototype of the Dia project allows the user to request this assistant to find documents, or carry out actions. For example, since the browser includes a history, the user can ask the assistant to find a document that was sent to a contact. Then, as this assistant is capable of carrying out actions, it is possible to ask the AI to send this document to another contact.
AI takes control of your PC
The strong point of this integration of AI with a browser is that it understands the context in which a request is made. The browser also has a memory that allows it to find a contact, or access a history. In addition, it is capable of operating on online services (such as an e-mail client) accessible on the web.
Otherwise, Dia’s third prototype would propel us directly into the era of artificial intelligence agents, capable of carrying out more complex actions to save time on the web. Indeed, The Browser Company has imagined an AI capable of taking control of the cursor and input on the browser, to carry out actions for the user. For example, given a list of items, this AI would be able to add all the items to an Amazon shopping cart. This could also send personalized emails, on Gmail, to a list of contacts, following a template. In essence, AI would perform certain repetitive or boring tasks for us.
Release in 2025?
And apparently, The Browser Company has already made immense progress in the development of this new browser, since according to TechCrunch, the launch would be planned for 2025. Otherwise, it should be noted that according to rumors, Google would also be working on an AI agent called Jarvis for Google Chrome. But for the moment, caution remains in order since the existence of this project has not yet been confirmed.
- The Browser Company, the developer of Arc, is working on a second browser
- And this week, it gives an overview of this new project called Dia
- One of the prototypes includes an AI agent that would take control of the cursor and input on the browser, to perform web tasks for the user
- For example, it would be possible to ask this artificial intelligence to add the elements of a list to an Amazon basket, or to send several emails to a list of contacts, following a model
