Browsing within the ChatGPT Desktop App

0:01 In October 2025, OpenAI introduced Atlas, a web browser designed with ChatGPT at its core. Here, we can see a quick demonstration, but Atlas could understand the page you are viewing, answer questions using that page as context.

0:19 Remember useful information and store it based on your browsing history, and it could even perform actions on your behalf across websites.

0:27 You can see here I'm asking a specific question and even though I'm not directly on that information in my rousing site, it's still pooled directly from this paper.

0:44 Now less than a year later, OpenAI is retiring Atlas. Atlas is scheduled to completely stop working on August 9th, 2026.

0:55 But this does not mean that OpenAI is abandoning browser-based AI. Instead, many of the ideas behind Atlas are moving into the broader ChatGPT and codex experience.

1:09 So in this video, we will explain what is changing and walk through the practical steps that you need before Atlas shuts down.

1:19 So here we are within the ChatGPT app. You'll notice it feels familiar, there's a few updates such as work mode and chat mode, but the key subtle feature that you need to pay attention to is this upper right hand corner, toggle side panel button, because this is what opens the browser, and this is what

1:40 allows you to interact with the web in the same way that you would with Google Chrome or with Atlas previously.

1:47 And so, just to show you, I can search. The web for this Learn Air community resource, and in the same way that I was able to ask Atlas questions about the open web page, I can do the same thing here and say, for example, What does the article say about prompting for file ingestion?

2:14 Now, when you're interacting with the web, make sure that you are in work mode of ChatGPT, because that's what actually enables the ChatGPT conversation to see the browser that's open.

2:28 But you'll see, similar to how this interaction worked in Atlas, it is able to open the article and pull directly based on this source of truth.

2:38 Now, the nice thing with doing this in ChatGPT is that this conversation has access to your memory.

2:50 It has access to your custom instructions. And so, this is helpful, say you have information here open, and maybe you want it to respond to an email.

3:01 Here in Work, you can ask it to go pull the email, read this information, and then draft an email in your personality, tone, and voice.

3:10 Uhm, here in the conversation, and it's pulling information from the web page that you have open. It's pulling information from your email, because we're in work mode, so it's connected.

3:23 But then it also has the context of. Your writing style and preferences when drafting an email. Turning our attention back to this interaction, we see that it pulled directly from what was here.

3:40 And so this is one use case for the browser. The other that I thought was cool is I had no browser open, and I asked it to map out this trip for me and find a location with co-working and different requirements.

3:58 And I sent that in as a direct prompt, and then the ChatGPT desktop app opened this browser, and it actually mapped out this trip for me.

4:10 And so there, the ChatGPT work was functioning as more as a energetic partner to help me get this task done, and it opened, and it interacted on web on my behalf.

4:23 to press accept, I allow you to go and use the browser on my behalf. And for the sites that you're logged in to, have it will already have that logged in capability, so just be aware and monitor and do the human part when it comes to giving ChatGPT access to your browser.

4:47 Now, let's move on to the second part of this video, which is the question that many of us Atlas users are facing, which is how do I adjust and transition away from my from Atlas and into this new way of working with ChatGPT Desktop app?

5:03 This is definitely a question that I've had, but I have found some cool features that I want to share with you to ease this process.

5:11 So, if we go into our browser settings by clicking on these three dots, when we have the browser open, and we go into browser settings, there's actually a very powerful feature, which is this import button and what this allows you to do is bring over data from another browser profile, profile, your bookmarks

5:35 , your preferences, your history from whichever Google Chrome account or Atlas account, in my case, that I'm signed into. And I can press import and I can select what I want to be imported.

5:52 And then this makes this experience a lot more seamless and less painful of a transition from Atlas.

6:01 And so now, if we go back into the app, you can see, that I have my password manager imported here.

6:14 And so, hopefully you found this video helpful, one, for easing the pain of the transition from Atlas, and then for those users who haven't used an AI browser before, I I hope this opens your eyes to how having a browser

6:30 directly within your AI conversation experience will help save you time and help make your work even more seamless as you move forward.

6:40 So thank you so much for watching this video, and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to comment on this resource.