The Browser Company, makers of the Arc Browser, revealed a few weeks ago that it was going back to the drawing board to create a new browser. Turns out, the browser — named Dia — will be very AI-centric. According to this early peek video, the company believes “the future of AI is not a button. Or an app. It will be an entirely new computing environment, built at the browser layer.”
The company is calling Dia a “smart web browser” that can do things such as perform actions on the user’s behalf. The video shows various demos of the browser’s capabilities; for example, a user describes a document and then asks the browser to find that document and send it to someone.
Also: 5 ways Arc browser makes browsing the web fun again
One of the Browser Company’s ideas is to bring very personalized intelligence to the insertion cursor of the browser; you can start a sentence, click on the cursor, and the AI will offer suggestions on how you can finish the sentence.
One of the reasons the Arc Browser maker can pivot so quickly is an infrastructure that starts with ADK (Arc Development Kit), according to the company. ADK is a way of building a web browser that enables engineers to prototype something in a matter of days instead of months. Next, the company layered components on top of ADK, such as memory, action, LLM technology, and self-driving (which will enable Dia to take tasks off your plate). These concepts are explained in the early peek video.
CEO Josh Miller says that Browser Company does not intend to get rid of Arc — good news for us Arc fans. However, AI is going to play a central part in Dia. The big question for those of us who’ve grown fond of Arc is: What the UI will look like? Arc is a beautiful browser, and all of the demos in the early peek video suggest that Dia will depart from that gorgeous UI and shift more toward Chrome.
Also: The best secure browsers for privacy: Expert tested
That’s not to say the UI in the demos is the final version, as Dia has a way to go before its release. The idea, however, is to not slap on a bunch of AI buttons but to integrate AI seamlessly throughout. The goal is nothing short of breaking apart the web browser and putting it back together so that it can be personalized for you.
Some observers — such as Ivan Mehta from TechCrunch — believe The Browser Company is making this shift to create new revenue streams for the company.
If you’re interested in helping The Browser Company build its new browser, it’s hiring for various engineering positions, which can be viewed here.
Make sure to watch the early peek video and check out the official Dia site for updates.
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