Microsoft is jumping into the AI browser wars with a bet that making its Edge browser your new personal assistant will help it compete with Google Chrome, as well as upstart projects from OpenAI and Perplexity.
Instead of creating an entirely new browser, the company revamped its Edge web browser with “Copilot Mode,” which lets AI do the hard tasks for you. While you sit back and watch, Microsoft’s Copilot tool can control your tabs, visit websites, and even book restaurant reservations in what Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman calls a “magical experience.”
“It’s almost like having a little angel on your shoulder doing the boring hard work of reading reviews, doing price comparisons, synthesizing research, but instead of it happening away from you, you can actually see it in real time unfolding before your eyes,” Suleyman told The Verge.
Copilot will be able to click on buttons, do research, and “read” reviews based on a user’s command, Suleyman explained. Instead of a ChatGPT-style summary where you get the information you ask for in a separate window, Copilot Mode is more like handing over command of your browser to a personal assistant. But if the user wants to step in at any time they can, he said, and the AI features aren’t mandatory.
