How AI will transform your Windows web browser

Windows is about to get even deeper AI integration, complete with chatbots gaining access to your PC’s apps — if you want. But it’s not just about the operating system. The humble web browser is about to change in a big way for those of us using Windows, too. It’s going to happen soon — and fast.

Already, Google is rolling out AI Mode in Google Search, which may seem like a monumental (if perhaps also questionable) change. But that’s just scratching the surface. The entire web is about to undergo a total generative AI transformation, starting at the browser level.

There’s lots to come — and especially if you’re using Windows for professional purposes, you’d be well-advised to be ready.

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Gemini’s Chrome creep

Everyone’s talking about Google Search transforming into something more like Perplexity via a new “AI Mode” that will be an option at first but is clearly Google’s long-term vision for search on the web.

But, at Google I/O 2025, Google also announced Gemini coming into Chrome itself. You will have a Gemini icon right on Chrome’s title bar whenever you open up the browser in Windows. You can click that icon to get a summary of the current web page or ask questions. You can type a question or use Gemini Live to chat about the web page with your voice.

That’s the initial version of the Gemini integration, and it sounds like everyone should see it soon. You can even get early access with a Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra subscription.

In the future, Google says Gemini in Chrome will do more — pulling in information from across all your open tabs at once.

Google also announced a new Gemini feature named Agent Mode that will rely on Gemini to browse the web for you and perform tasks like searching for apartments. It seems obvious that this will come to Chrome in the future, too — letting Gemini navigate and browse the web on your behalf.

Copilot Mode in Edge

Google isn’t the only one sticking AI everywhere imaginable, of course. Microsoft Edge already has plenty of AI integration — including a Copilot icon on the toolbar. Click that, and you’ll get a Copilot sidebar where you can talk about the current web page. 

But the integration runs deeper than most people think, with more coming yet: Copilot in Edge now has access to Copilot Vision, which means you can share your current web view with the AI model and chat about what you see with your voice. This is already here — today.

Following Microsoft’s Build 2025 developers’ conference, the company is starting to test a Copilot box right on Edge’s New Tab page. Rather than a traditional Bing search box in that area, you’ll soon see a Copilot prompt box so you can ask a question or perform a search with Copilot — not Bing.

It looks like Microsoft is calling this “Copilot Mode” for Edge. And it’s not just a transformed New Tab page complete with suggested prompts and a Copilot box, either: Microsoft is also experimenting with “Context Clues,” which will let Copilot take into account your browser history and preferences when answering questions. It’s worth noting that Copilot Mode is an optional and experimental feature.

The rise of Dia

Forget the big boys for a second. A relatively scrappy startup known as The Browser Company (which, yes, is actually its name) made waves when it first released the Arc browser back in 2022. The project was designed to reimagine the web browser and challenge our existing notions around that framework. A startup creating a new web browser was daring enough to get attention. The design was interesting, and it grew a dedicated cult following.

But Arc was more of a power-user browser than something mainstream, and it didn’t catch on in the way The Browser Company wanted. Plain and simple, it isn’t the future of the web browser, as the company eventually came to realize.

With that in mind, The Browser Company is now focusing on a new web browser named Dia — designed to be an “AI browser,” first and foremost. As the creator of Arc just wrote in an open letter:

Let me be even more clear: traditional browsers, as we know them, will die.

He lays out a vision for how web pages will still be important — but how the browser will need to change. The Browser Company is now making a browser for the vision he describes.

Agentic browsing in Opera Neon

Opera just launched a resurrected version of Opera Neon with local AI built in. Like the vision The Browser Company has for Arc — and like Gemini’s Agent Mode — Opera is pushing a vision of “agentic browsing” where the browser could do your online shopping research for you. Interestingly enough, Opera says its browser will do all of this AI work locally, using an offline, local chatbot, rather than sending any data to cloud servers.

Mozilla Firefox and Brave’s AI choice

Even the less AI-obsessed browsers of Mozilla Firefox and Brave are now quietly embracing AI in an interesting way. 

Firefox recently added an AI chatbot sidebar that lets you choose your favorite chatbot. While Google builds Gemini into Chrome and Microsoft builds Copilot into Edge, Firefox asks which one you prefer — ChatGPT, Claude, or something else entirely.

Meanwhile, the Brave browser has a built-in Leo AI feature that also gives you multiple options. Most intriguingly, it lets you “bring your own model.” You can choose a large-language-model AI engine hosted anywhere you like — on your own computer, in a data center you trust, or wherever else you like. You aren’t limited to a few chatbots designed for consumers.

Quite frankly, if deep AI integration is the future, I’d rather see this kind of choice than having each web browser choose its preferred AI chatbot for you.

The OpenAI hardware question

Last but not least, OpenAI hasn’t announced a browser of its own (yet, at least), but right after last week’s Microsoft Build and Google I/O events, the company behind ChatGPT announced it was enlisting Jony Ive — designer of the iPhone and beyond — to help create an entirely new hardware product.

While Google is pushing its Android XR and smart glasses as a way to interact with Gemini AI, it sounds like OpenAI is pursuing something else entirely. That’s all we really know right now.

Stay tuned for the future

Whatever you think about AI, one thing is clear: The tech industry isn’t exactly boring as we approach the middle of 2025. Things are evolving quickly, and the way AI is integrated into our tried-and-true browser experience is almost certainly in for a serious shake-up.

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