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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Atlassian has acquired The Browser Firm, maker of Arc and Dia.
- The corporate’s new browser might be designed for information staff.
- Like Dia, it would leverage agentic AI to take motion on behalf of customers.
The race to construct the following technology of net browsers is heating up.
Atlassian, the software program firm behind Trello and Jira, introduced on Thursday that it has acquired The Browser Firm, creator of the Dia net browser. First unveiled in June, Dia is an online browser that makes use of an AI agent system to work together with customers by way of pure language, predict their searching targets with out particular prompting, and pull info from third-party apps. Dia is the successor to Arc, one other platform created by The Browser Firm.
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By way of the acquisition — which reportedly price $610 million — Atlassian goals to improve Dia into an AI-powered net browser designed particularly for information staff. There may also be a deal with personalization: Whereas conventional net browsers have traditionally required customers to navigate the huge expanse of the net on their very own, the brand new browser might be constructed to grasp the context of a person’s search historical past and actively assist them to extra effectively retrieve the data they’re on the lookout for.
“It is time for a browser that is really constructed for work — a browser that helps you do, not simply browse,” Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes wrote in an organization blog post. “Information staff want a browser designed for his or her particular wants, not one which’s been constructed for everybody on the planet. That is what we are going to construct with The Browser Firm.”
What to anticipate
In his weblog publish, Cannon-Brookes provided some sneak peeks at his firm’s forthcoming net browser.
For one factor, it would rework tabs from inert litter on the prime of the net web page into icons “enriched with context,” in response to the weblog publish. In a brief demo clip, for instance, a Google Calendar tab is proven counting down the minutes to a gathering.
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The browser may also be constructed “with AI expertise and private work reminiscence,” Cannon-Brookes writes, seemingly suggesting that the browser will be capable to proactively take motion on behalf of customers primarily based on their private searching historical past — one thing that Dia can already do (with person consent). Atlassian didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark to elaborate on how its new browser will differ from Dia on this respect.
Atlassian may also intention to market the brand new, AI-powered Dia to companies by emphasizing safety, compliance, and top-down administrative management, in response to Cannon-Brookes’ publish.
The rise of the AI browser
Conventional serps like Google and Bing have lengthy leveraged algorithms to find out which net content material will get surfaced in response to customers’ queries. However the ongoing rise of generative AI has been reshaping among the elementary dynamics of how folks have interaction with the web, thereby inflicting an enormous shift within the on-line search business.
Google, for instance, responded to the viral success of ChatGPT by fusing its personal massive language mannequin into its search engine, in order that customers now see an AI-generated summary on the prime of every search, above the lengthy checklist of net hyperlinks.
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In October, OpenAI launched ChatGPT search, which lets customers retrieve up-to-date net info by way of the chatbot. Apple is reportedly planning so as to add AI options to Safari and can be rumored to be in talks to buy Perplexity, the AI-powered search startup that not too long ago launched its personal AI-powered net browser, Comet.
A standard thread amongst all these efforts is the rising perception that generative AI can usher in a brand new search expertise, one wherein customers aren’t left to their very own gadgets however can work with an automatic sidekick to search out higher info sooner.
