A new Dia for web browsing?

I doubt I’ll switch to The Browser Company’s new AI-infused-and-focused Dia browser when it debuts next year. But I can’t say I’m not impressed with their latest video. The meta angle of explaining the structure of this recruiting video within the recruiting video was a creative move. Their whole company is quite creative, really. Their Arc browser is nothing if not a bunch of creative new ideas about the interface for a web browser. One that didn’t click with me, but I can see why it clicks with so many other people.

I also think they’re dead-on when they say that AI isn’t going to be a bunch of different apps or buttons within every app. It’s going to evolve into a layer on top of everything we do with our devices. But I think that layer is going to be most useful at the operating system level, not contained to the web browser.

Still, if you don’t have an operating system to play with — and there are only a few in the world that matter — the web browser is the next best environment. While it doesn’t have access to all the other apps and data on your device (which is why plugging into the OS’s AI system is going to be most effective), a whole bunch of what people do on their computers is done in websites and web apps in the browser. And that percentage is growing, not shrinking.

Putting generative text features behind the text cursor is a genius move. I hope more products jump onto that UI. It now seems so obvious that the cursor (caret) is exactly where those capabilities should live.

The browse-for-me/take-action-for-me approach is a familiar idea. It’s what the Rabbit R1 is supposed to do. On one hand, I like the approach because it means interfaces can continue to be built and optimized for human use, and the computer just needs to learn how to work its way around the human interface. On the other hand, it seems pretty inefficient when the alternative is for sites to provide APIs for the computer to tap directly into, rather than fake its way around an interface.

I don’t know which is going to win out there, but building the ability to “click around” a human interface will always be a good backup for sites and services that don’t provide APIs.

The Browser Company is certainly one to watch in our next phase of computing. They’ve already earned a loyal fan base with Arc. That’s the toe in the door to becoming a more pervasive influence in the tech world.

Those fans — and others like me — will try out Dia just because of their reputation. If it’s great, we’ll tell our friends. Enough people switch from the big browsers, and there’s some real disruption to the current computing landscape.

Especially now, in this tumultuous time when Google has been directed by the Department of Justice to sell off its Chrome browser, The Browser Company seems poised to be a bigger player in the next chapter of the web.