What a coincidence: Microsoft Edge has the same ideas as ChatGPT's browser

Microsoft launched the Copilot Mode for Edge back in July, offering some interesting AI browser features. However, OpenAI stole Microsoft’s thunder this week with the launch of the ChatGPT-powered Atlas browser. Now, Microsoft has hit back with new features in Copilot Mode for Edge.

The company launched several previously announced additions to Copilot Mode for Edge, starting with Actions. This feature means the web browser can complete tasks on your behalf, such as making bookings or filling out forms. In fact, Microsoft says it can make restaurant reservations or search through your email inbox and unsubscribe you from shopping newsletters. In any event, this agentic feature comes as Chrome and Atlas offer similar smarts.

Microsoft also announced that the previously announced Journeys feature is now available:

With Journeys, you see your past browsing projects automatically grouped into helpful topics and you can dive right back in, all with your explicit permission.

Microsoft says you can also grant Copilot access to your browsing history for better responses to queries. For example, you can ask the browser to “show me that blue hoodie I was using last week,” and it’ll then show a list of relevant tabs. This echoes Atlas’s own browser memories functionality.

These features join the existing list of Copilot Mode for Edge capabilities. For starters, this AI browsing mode reworks the new tab page by offering a single text box for searches, chatbot queries/prompts, and more. Microsoft says Copilot can see all your open tabs to “understand the full context,” and also offers natural voice navigation.

There’s clearly a lot of crossover between Copilot Mode for Edge and the Atlas browser when it comes to features. It almost goes without saying that the Copilot chatbot itself is based on OpenAI’s own GPT AI models, which are also used for ChatGPT.