What happened to ChatGPT Atlas, and what should you use instead?

ChatGPT Atlas: what shut down, and when

Atlas was OpenAI's Chromium browser with ChatGPT built into the sidebar: chat about the page in front of you, browser memories that carried context between sessions, and an agent mode that clicked through multi-step tasks. It launched on October 21, 2025 for macOS, free for Free, Plus, Pro and Go accounts, with agent mode in preview for Plus, Pro and Business users. Windows, iOS and Android versions were listed as coming soon at launch.

OpenAI's help centre now carries the other half of that story. The company is deprecating Atlas and moving browser-based agentic capabilities into ChatGPT and Codex, and Atlas was scheduled to stop working on August 9, 2026. The announcement landed on July 9, 2026 in the same release as ChatGPT Work and GPT-5.6, which gave users 31 days to move off the browser.

If Atlas is still installed on your machine, expect the worst version of that: OpenAI warns it may no longer open, browse, or run browser-based agentic workflows. The help page frames the retirement as a security decision as much as a product one. Browsers need constant patching, and the company did not want users parked on one that no longer receives updates.

What does not transfer from Atlas, and what to save first

Most migration guides skip this part, so read it before you uninstall anything:

• Bookmarks: they do not transfer automatically. Atlas could export them to an HTML file, which Chrome then imports through Bookmarks, then Import bookmarks and settings.
• Open tabs: no migration path. Bookmark the tabs you still need or paste the URLs into a note.
• History: also not carried over, so the record of what you read in Atlas is gone unless you exported it.
• Cookies and signed-in sessions: these cannot be imported into another browser at all. OpenAI's guidance treats cookie and session files as sensitive data you should not hand to anyone you do not fully trust.
• ChatGPT conversations: stored separately from Atlas browser data, so your chat history is unaffected by the shutdown.

The export window closed on August 9, 2026, so on a machine where Atlas no longer launches those items are effectively unrecoverable.

What replaced Atlas: the ChatGPT desktop app and Chrome sidebar

OpenAI did not replace the browser with another browser. It moved the same agentic browsing inside ChatGPT: a rebuilt desktop app for Mac and Windows with a built-in browser, Computer Use for local files and apps, a plugin directory covering Slack, Teams, Drive, SharePoint and similar tools, and Scheduled Tasks for recurring work. Per OpenAI's launch post, Chat, Work and Codex are available on every plan in that desktop app, including Free, and the old desktop client was renamed ChatGPT Classic.

ChatGPT Work is the agent that arrived with the deprecation. It started on web and mobile for Pro, Enterprise and Edu accounts on July 9, 2026, with Plus and Business following over the next few days. Its usage follows the same structure as Codex rather than the flat message limits of ordinary chat, so long autonomous runs draw down plan capacity.

For anyone who just wants ChatGPT in the browser they already use, OpenAI updated its Chrome extension to work as a sidebar in the same release. That path keeps your extensions, passwords and bookmarks where they are, which makes it the shortest migration from Atlas. Availability still depends on your plan, region and workspace settings, and workspace admins can turn it off.

Perplexity Comet: the closest surviving equivalent

Comet is the option that looks most like Atlas. It is a Chromium browser with an agent in the chrome that reads your tabs, summarises pages and runs multi-step tasks without a separate chat window, and Perplexity lists it for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The browser is a free download, opened to everyone worldwide in October 2025 after a waitlist launch in July of that year.

Perplexity's pricing page shows what the paid tiers actually buy: Free at $0, Pro at $20 per month and Max at $200 per month. Those tiers raise query and agent limits and unlock extras such as Computer credits, and Perplexity's help centre puts the highest weekly allowance for browser agent queries on Max. For most Atlas refugees the honest sequence is install the free browser, use it for a month, and only consider Pro if the daily limits become the bottleneck.

One difference worth knowing before you commit: Comet is tied to one vendor the same way Atlas was. That is what the shutdown just demonstrated about single-vendor browsers, so keep an export routine for bookmarks whichever one you pick.

The part the July coverage skipped: browsing data

On September 20, 2026, threat-intel publisher Buchodi described how OpenAI's ad collector works. A cookie named __obi is set on .openai.com and tied to your ChatGPT account; advertisers who buy ChatGPT ads install OpenAI's tag on their own sites, and loading that tag sends __obi back to OpenAI together with data about the page you are reading. The result is a link between your ChatGPT account and what you do elsewhere on the web, built the same way retailers already load Meta and Google tags. That analysis is independent rather than an OpenAI statement, and OpenAI's privacy policy separately describes using data to personalise ads for Free and Go users.

It matters when you choose a replacement. Reading a page in a browser profile signed into your ChatGPT account is not the same as reading it in a clean profile, and it is not the same as reading it in Comet. If you moved off Atlas to keep an assistant out of the way, sign in to ChatGPT only where you actually need the agent.

Which one to install

Two rules cover almost everyone. If work already happens in ChatGPT and you want the agent to reach your files, install the desktop app: it is the only free replacement that pairs a browser with local computer use in a single window. If sourced research is the priority and you would rather not keep a second assistant running, start with Comet, which costs nothing to try.

Staying on Atlas is not one of the options. Security updates stopped with the shutdown, and the bookmark export path closed on the same day. Whichever replacement you pick, you are choosing it now rather than later.

At a glance

Atlas replacement options, verified September 21, 2026

FAQ

Is ChatGPT Atlas still available?

No. OpenAI's help centre states that Atlas was scheduled to stop working on August 9, 2026, and the original announcement page now carries a deprecation notice explaining that browser-based agentic features moved into ChatGPT and Codex.

Is the ChatGPT desktop app free?

OpenAI says Chat, Work and Codex are available on every plan in the new desktop app, including Free, on Mac and Windows. ChatGPT Work itself began with Pro, Enterprise and Edu accounts on July 9, 2026, then Plus and Business, and it draws on the same usage structure as Codex.

Is Perplexity Comet free?

Yes. Comet is a free download, and Perplexity's pricing page lists a free $0 tier alongside Pro at $20 per month and Max at $200 per month. The paid tiers raise query and agent limits rather than unlocking the browser.

Related reading

Firefox AI smart window breakdown, Perplexity tool profile, ChatGPT ads pricing

Sources

• OpenAI Help Centre: Evolving Atlas into ChatGPT for browser-based agentic work
• OpenAI: ChatGPT is now a partner for your most ambitious work (July 9, 2026)
• OpenAI: Introducing ChatGPT Atlas (now carrying the deprecation notice)
• Perplexity: Comet browser page
• Perplexity pricing
• Perplexity: Comet is now available to everyone worldwide
• Buchodi: ChatGPT now knows what you do on other websites via ad collector (Sept 20, 2026)