Analysis

Habit, friction and brand: The three factors in whether OpenAI’s new browser Atlas will defeat Google’s Chrome

Overnight, OpenAI entered the browser wars, launching Atlas. With ChatGPT’s agentic mode baked in, Atlas represents the biggest challenge to Google’s Chrome browser in a decade, and a changed landscape for marketers and media owners. In this post for Mumbrella Pro and Unmade’s paying members, Tim Burrowes offers his first impressions.

Tim Burrowes

October 22, 2025 3:10

Will Atlas be a knockout blow? (ChatGPT, of course)

Ironically, my first search on what I suspect will become a big part of my digital life was “Why isn’t this working properly?”

With most recent OpenAI products launching initially only for the US market, it was a pleasant change to see Atlas available in Australia on day one. Atlas is, however, so far only available on the MacOS operating system.

The first message I saw after downloading Atlas onto my Mac was a warning from Cloudflare that it couldn’t reach the ChatGPT site. I clearly wasn’t the only one trying the new browser.

In a couple of minutes, the error message vanished, and has not (so far) returned.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.