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

Trip.com Is Betting An AI Agent Will Book Your Next Vacation

Abu Dhabi, Jazeera Airways and a run of hotel deals give the company more inventory. Its Mastercard demo says the most about where booking technology is headed.

Published

4 days ago

September 16, 2026

Nour Nasir

trip.com is betting an ai agent will book your next vacation

Most of what Trip.com Group announced at Arabian Travel Market 2026 this week reads like the standard expansion playbook of an online travel agency: a new agreement with a tourism board, a run of hotel partnerships, an airline deal. However, one item was considerably more interesting: a demonstration built with Mastercard of an AI agent that doesn’t just suggest trips but also pays for them.

trip.com tripgenie ai agent

The showcase put TripGenie, the company’s AI travel assistant, to work searching, selecting and completing purchases inside a single booking flow, with Mastercard’s Agent Suite for Merchants handling the payment step and Network International processing the transactions on the merchant side. It’s limited for now to attractions and ancillary services, but the partners plan a phased commercial rollout from early 2027.

“As traveller expectations change, technology and AI will play an increasingly important role in how people plan their journeys,” says Schubert Lou, CEO of Trip.com.

Meanwhile, in more conventional news, CEO Lou and Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry (Director General for Tourism at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi), signed an agreement building on the two organizations’ existing partnership, with joint marketing and Abu Dhabi destination content to be pushed across Trip.com Group’s platforms.

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On accommodation, the group expanded its partnerships with JA Hotels & Resorts, Ishraq Hospitality and Aleph Hospitality and deepened its work with Silkhaus, which brings vacation homes into a portfolio that has so far leaned on hotels. Jazeera Airways signed a strategic partnership intended to widen the Kuwaiti carrier’s reach and encourage earlier bookings, tied to Kuwait’s own tourism ambitions.

The company moved into a larger Dubai office earlier this year and describes its long-term aim as a two-way ecosystem: sending Middle East travelers abroad while drawing international visitors in.