Brow(rai)ser
I came across this X post by my good friend Sameer Singh today:
This remains objectively hilarious pic.twitter.com/7DCRSzBx2O
— Sameer Singh (@sameer_singh17) December 31, 2025
Indeed, based (ironically) on Google Search trends data, it seems the AI browsers have yet to find product-market fit.
In some ways this is an unfair - or at least, unflattering - way to cut the data. Google Search trends shows hype relative to an index, and there was so much hype at the time these products launched, it’s perhaps an overstated decline in usage-intent interest (assuming searches today correspond to actual users, rather than just newsreaders).
But even with that generous interpretation, it’s clear these products haven’t landed in the way many expect. I think there are a couple of main reasons.
First, Google Chrome is such a good product in its own right that switching across to a new browser is a lift that most people won’t do until the experience is truly 10x better. Features like Bookmarks, Autofill, and so on make it a difficult product to switch away from: you need real motivation.
Relatedly, having tried these products, the AI native browsers don’t yet deliver a “wow” 10x experience to the user. Instead, they feel incremental and skeoumorphic, rather than a fundamental rethink of how to navigate the web in an AI-native way. Ok cool I can have a chatbot up on the side panel, or ask a computer use agent to conduct some tasks for me. But is that really user led design, or is it a technology and/or design paradigm looking for a use case?
I remain convinced that with the power of memory and context at its full potential in AI, more and more of our internet experience will blend with AI tools and interfaces. But the integration is a question for me. Is it a browser? Is it an app ecosystem within an AI interface? Is it something different altogether that we haven’t yet envisaged? (The latter is the most likely, in my opinion)
Regardless of what ends up being “it”, it’s safe to say that the current generation of AI browsers is not “it” - at least not yet. But there are billions, potentially trillions of dollars of value on the line for the company/ies that figure it out, so I dare say the experimentation will keep coming. Great for us as users!