What is the story about?
Google has unveiled Disco, an experimental browser that automatically creates custom web applications based on a user’s browsing activity. The move marks a direct challenge to the emerging class of AI-powered browsers, particularly OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas, which has been positioned as a rival to Chrome despite being built on Chromium, the open-source platform developed and maintained by Google.
While rival products have largely focused on adding AI chat features to conventional browsers, Google’s Disco seeks to rethink the role of a browser when artificial intelligence sits at its core. The launch comes weeks after OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman described Atlas as a challenger to Chrome’s long-standing dominance, claiming it would end the browser’s “17-year monopoly”. Unlike Atlas, which essentially layers ChatGPT onto a traditional browsing experience, Disco aims to redesign how browsers function with AI built in from the ground up.
A key feature of Disco is GenTabs, powered by Google’s Gemini 3 model. GenTabs analyses open tabs and turns them into interactive applications tailored to the user’s activity. Researching holiday destinations, for instance, can produce a trip planner with maps and itineraries. Studying complex subjects generates visualisation tools and learning aids, while meal planning results in recipe organisers with integrated shopping lists.
This approach differs sharply from competitors such as ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet and Microsoft Edge with Copilot, which primarily add AI chat panels to existing browser layouts.
Atlas offers features such as context-aware right-click menus and agent-based tasks like booking reservations, but it still operates as a conventional browser with AI assistance added on top. Comet and Edge follow similar models, integrating their AI systems into familiar interfaces rather than redefining browser behaviour.
By contrast, GenTabs treats AI-generated applications as core browser elements rather than supplementary tools. Users can refine these apps using natural language commands, with all outputs linked back to original sources. Early testers report using GenTabs for project planning, research synthesis and educational work that would otherwise involve managing large numbers of tabs.
Google is currently offering Disco via a waitlist for macOS users only, describing it as a “discovery vehicle” for testing ideas that could later be incorporated into Chrome or other products. The company has acknowledged that the browser remains limited in its early stages.
The competitive backdrop is notable. OpenAI, Perplexity and Microsoft are all building AI browsers on Chromium, which restricts how radically they can reshape the browsing experience, as innovations must sit atop an architecture designed for pre-AI web use.
Whether GenTabs proves to be a genuinely superior innovation or simply an alternative approach remains unclear. Google Labs has a track record of launching experimental projects that never gain wider adoption. What is clear, however, is that competition in the browser space is intensifying, with companies betting heavily on AI as the next major battleground. While Google’s control of Chromium offers structural advantages, turning experimental ideas into widely adopted products remains a significant challenge.
While rival products have largely focused on adding AI chat features to conventional browsers, Google’s Disco seeks to rethink the role of a browser when artificial intelligence sits at its core. The launch comes weeks after OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman described Atlas as a challenger to Chrome’s long-standing dominance, claiming it would end the browser’s “17-year monopoly”. Unlike Atlas, which essentially layers ChatGPT onto a traditional browsing experience, Disco aims to redesign how browsers function with AI built in from the ground up.
AI-generated apps at the centre
A key feature of Disco is GenTabs, powered by Google’s Gemini 3 model. GenTabs analyses open tabs and turns them into interactive applications tailored to the user’s activity. Researching holiday destinations, for instance, can produce a trip planner with maps and itineraries. Studying complex subjects generates visualisation tools and learning aids, while meal planning results in recipe organisers with integrated shopping lists.
This approach differs sharply from competitors such as ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet and Microsoft Edge with Copilot, which primarily add AI chat panels to existing browser layouts.
How Disco differs from rivals
Atlas offers features such as context-aware right-click menus and agent-based tasks like booking reservations, but it still operates as a conventional browser with AI assistance added on top. Comet and Edge follow similar models, integrating their AI systems into familiar interfaces rather than redefining browser behaviour.
By contrast, GenTabs treats AI-generated applications as core browser elements rather than supplementary tools. Users can refine these apps using natural language commands, with all outputs linked back to original sources. Early testers report using GenTabs for project planning, research synthesis and educational work that would otherwise involve managing large numbers of tabs.
Strategic timing in browser competition
Google is currently offering Disco via a waitlist for macOS users only, describing it as a “discovery vehicle” for testing ideas that could later be incorporated into Chrome or other products. The company has acknowledged that the browser remains limited in its early stages.
The competitive backdrop is notable. OpenAI, Perplexity and Microsoft are all building AI browsers on Chromium, which restricts how radically they can reshape the browsing experience, as innovations must sit atop an architecture designed for pre-AI web use.
Whether GenTabs proves to be a genuinely superior innovation or simply an alternative approach remains unclear. Google Labs has a track record of launching experimental projects that never gain wider adoption. What is clear, however, is that competition in the browser space is intensifying, with companies betting heavily on AI as the next major battleground. While Google’s control of Chromium offers structural advantages, turning experimental ideas into widely adopted products remains a significant challenge.
