News

OpenAI Rolls Out ChatGPT Atlas Browser On macOS

The tech company’s new macOS browser folds ChatGPT into daily web use, ahead of a wider global rollout.

Published

11 months ago

October 22, 2025

Nour Nasir

OpenAI

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Atlas, a Chrome-based browser that embeds its chatbot directly into the browsing window. The macOS version is out today, with Windows, Android, and iOS to follow. The move brings OpenAI into the same arena as established browsers that have begun layering generative AI tools into search and navigation.

Atlas lets users call up ChatGPT inside any text field or tab. In a live demo, an OpenAI staffer used it to polish an email draft in Gmail, showing how the chatbot can handle quick writing tasks without leaving the page. A sidebar can stay open for ongoing chats, and a prompt bar appears automatically in new tabs.

The browser adds a “memory” option that recalls user preferences and past activity — for example, reopening a product page by command. The setting is optional, with full deletion controls and private browsing. OpenAI said none of this data will be used to train its models, a point likely aimed at easing privacy concerns as AI tools move deeper into personal workflows.

A preview “Agent Mode,” available to Plus, Pro, and Business users, lets ChatGPT carry out tasks such as booking flights, editing documents, or searching online independently. “It can help you book reservations or flights or even just edit a document that you’re working on,” explained Adam Fry, product lead for ChatGPT Search.

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CEO Sam Altman framed Atlas as an overdue step in browser evolution. “Tabs are great but we haven’t seen a lot of browser innovation since then,” he noted.

With Atlas, OpenAI joins a growing wave of “agentic” browsers from firms like Opera and Perplexity, while Google readies deeper Gemini integration in Chrome. For the wider market — including emerging digital economies in the Middle East — the launch signals a new phase where browsing, search, and AI productivity converge inside a single interface.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

1 week ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.