ChatGPT Atlas vs Opera

ChatGPT Atlas is a Chromium-based browser built by OpenAI that feels a lot like Google Chrome, but instead of Google Search, you have the full power of ChatGPT available everywhere you go.

Think of ChatGPT Atlas as more of an upgraded UI/UX for the ChatGPT desktop app than that of a full replacement for your primary browser.

If you compare it in that way, then it's a no-brainer to install and use it instead of the ChatGPT desktop app.

For example, clicking on a link mid-chat expands the site to the left-hand-side, with chat sitting on the right. It's just a better user-experience than it popping you out to whatever default browser you have set.

From there you can easily ask additional questions about the site you're on, or even reference other open tabs along with browser history. And depending on how complex of a question you ask, their built-in AI agent mode can even pop in and start navigating and completing tasks for you.

So what is the biggest "Pro" for ChatGPT Atlas? It's that it feels like an upgraded desktop app on all fronts. It just feels "right".

Once you get used to having your full ChatGPT account everywhere you go, it can become hard to use another browser because you are always missing that personalized experience.

ChatGPT Atlas has an AI agent mode that can navigate the web on your behalf. It has ChatGPT with you everywhere (even highlight some text and tell it how you want to modify it and it'll do it inline right there).

Because it's a browser, you also have the ability to @ mention tabs to pull in added context, and it also has deep memory on what you're searching from day-to-day.

The truth is, we experienced a ton of efficiency gains at work once we started using ChatGPT Atlas. Every question gets answered faster. There’s no more copying and pasting context from your browser into a separate AI app. It feels like a constant thinking partner. Our research quality has improved, and we probably use the side chat 20 to 40 times a day.

It even has voice mode built in. It can be a little buggy at times (when it acts up we switch to Wispr Flow) but you can literally think out loud about whatever page you’re on and go deeper with AI right there.

We’re now getting work done faster and require all team members and freelancers to work within ChatGPT Atlas as part of their role with us. If you’re running a business, especially a small team, I think you’ll see output increase just by giving them this browser. Just make sure they’re on a paid account so they don’t hit limits.

While Atlas is technically free, the features that you're probably seeing teased all over social media and the marketing videos are actually primarily paid (at least for now).

To unlock their AI agent functionality, you must be on ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) or higher. The same goes for memory and file recall (prior uploaded documents) as well.

So while Atlas is free, it's a pretty restricted version of it (although the truth is we pay for multiple ChatGPT accounts and find the value way outweighs the cost).

Do you use ChatGPT? If yes, absolutely install Atlas browser, and just treat it as more of a replacement for the ChatGPT desktop app.

In-fact, use ChatGPT for work and personal, and have 2 separate accounts? Use Atlas to login to one of them, and the ChatGPT desktop app to login to the other one, and boom! You've now got built-in account switching (sorta).

If you're not a paying user of ChatGPT, then I'd recommend you give Comet browser by Perplexity a shot if you want to experience the AI agent mode and other agentic features without purchasing a paid subscription.

Opera has managed to stay about as relevant in the browser space as Firefox, which is just a tad bit behind that of Microsoft Edge.

Interestingly enough, unlike most other major browsers on the market, Opera is actually a publicly traded company with about a $1B market cap. This is particularly interesting because it means that they need to focus on growing revenue as they have investors.

In their attempt to stay relevant, they have copied many features from the more modern browsers on the market like Arc Browser (e.g. Spaces and Folders).

You can tell Arc has been influencing the browser market. They expanded the idea of browser profiles into Spaces, and now Opera has copied the concept with Workspaces. The switching animation is slick and you can create as many workspaces as you'd like, but they all share the same cookies and cache, so you cannot fully separate environments like personal and work accounts. That separation is the key difference between Arc's Spaces and Opera's Workspaces.

You can create groups of tabs in the top if you want similar sites to be together for easy expanding/collapsing. If you open up 2 or more of the sam site, it'll automatically create a tab group for that site.

Opera has been called out a bit lately for being owned by a Chinese company, and for making most of its revenue from Ads, meaning they very well are tracking, storing, and selling details about how you're using the browser.

While tempting and seemingly impressive, there's just something in the heavy influencer marketing push and security concerns that make us have a bit of pause in actually using Opera as our daily driver.