The Browser Company Launches Dia: An AI-Powered Browser Redefining Web Navigation

The Browser Company launches its AI-first browser, Dia, in beta | TechCrunch

Traditional web tools are facing an existential crisis as AI products and tools increasingly eat up attention -- and therefore market share and money -- from a wide swathe of products that people have used for years to interact with the internet. At least, that's what The Browser Company seems to think is happening. The company last year decided to stop developing its popular web browser Arc, acknowledging that while Arc was popular among enthusiasts, it never hit scale as it presented too steep a learning curve to reach mass adoption. The startup has since been heads-down on developing a browser that bakes in AI at the heart of the browser. That browser, called Dia, is now available for use in beta, though you'll need an invite to try it out. The Browser Company's CEO Josh Miller has of late acknowledged how people have been using AI tools for all sorts of tasks, and Dia is a reflection of that. By giving users an AI interface within the browser itself, where a majority of work is done these days, the company is hoping to slide into the user flow and give people an easy way to use AI, cutting out the need to visit the sites for tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Up front, Dia presents a straightforward interface. The browser is based on Chromium, the open-source browser project backed by Google, so it has a familiar look and feel. The marquee feature here is the AI smarts, of course. Besides letting you type in website names and search terms, Dia's URL bar acts as the interface for its in-built AI chatbot. The bot can search the web for you, summarize files that you upload, and can automatically switch between chat and search functions. Users can also ask questions about all the tabs they have open, and the bot can even write up a draft based on the contents of those tabs. To set your preferences, all you have to do is talk to the chatbot to customize its tone of voice, style of writing, and settings for coding. Via an opt-in feature called History, you can allow the browser to use seven days of your browsing history as context to answer queries. Another feature called Skills lets you build small snippets of code that act as shortcuts to various settings. For example, you can ask the browser to build a layout for reading, and it'll code something up for you -- think Siri shortcuts, but for your browser. Now, we have to note that chatbots in browsers are not a new feature at all. Several browser companies have integrated AI tools into their interfaces -- for example, Opera Neon lets users use an AI agent to build mini-applications or complete tasks on their behalf, and Google is also adding AI-powered features to Chrome. The Browser Company says all existing Arc members will get access to Dia immediately, and existing Dia users will be able to send invites to other users.

The Dia browser is a big bet on the web -- and an even bigger bet on AI

Dia, the new browser from The Browser Company, is almost nothing like the company's last product. That app, Arc, was a total rethink of how browsers work: it moved tabs to the side and combined them with bookmarks, it offered endless ways to organize all your stuff, and it had lots of ideas about how to make your web surfing a little more delightful. Dia will get some of that stuff in time, The Browser Company's CEO Josh Miller tells me. The app that's launching today for existing Arc users is very much still a beta (and only available on Mac). But none of that stuff is the point of Dia anyway. The point of Dia, he says, is to bring artificial intelligence to the very center of practically everything you do online. The app's central feature is a chat tool that is able to look at every website you visit, access every site you're logged into, and help you find information, get stuff done, and navigate the web a little more easily.

Love Arc browser? You can get early access to its new AI-powered replacement

If you're down about Arc browser going away, fret not, because the Browser Company has something that might change the way we think about web browsers. Dia is the new Arc. Or, rather, Dia is replacing Arc; it's a totally new browser and way of thinking about browsing. Now, you can sign up to access it. You see, The Browser Company -- which announced Dia in December -- realized it made browsing too complicated and decided to go back to the drawing board. However, this wasn't about retooling Arc or simplifying it. No. The Browser company had something else in mind: AI. Dia goes back to the basics -- at least in terms of use. If you've used Chrome, you can use Dia. But Dia is very much in line with what The Browser Company attempted to do with its predecessor, as in a more modern-looking browser with more polish and better animations. But that's not the big ticket item for Dia. Also: Arc reinvented browsing for the better - and that was apparently the problem The Browser Company's new browser will have a sidebar dedicated solely to AI, which can be called up at any time. With the new AI chatbot, you can query about any of the tabs you currently have open (or even tabs from your browsing history). Although I haven't been able to test Dia yet (I'm on the wait list), from everything I've read, this will most likely behave similarly to Opera's Aria AI feature -- the biggest differences being it'll use a different AI tool and the Dia sidebar will be dedicated solely to AI (where the Opera sidebar has several features and options). I will say this: Opera's Aria was the first AI tool I used, and I've always found it quite useful. I would imagine, given how much I liked Arc, that Dia will have a refinement that Chrome cannot touch. As well, Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company, is all-in on AI and is even quick to remind that ChatGPT is the fastest-growing application in the internet's long history. You can watch a YouTube video from The Browser Company about ways to "hack" the new Dia browser. That video gives you a sneak peek at what it looks like and what it can do. In that video, you'll see how users managed to use Dia for drafting, analyzing, and even personalization. It seems the way Dia will work (accoring to this piece from The Verge) is that if you type a URL in the omnibox, the website for that URL will appear in a tab; if you type a search, the results will appear as usual; if you type what appears to be an AI query, it'll bring up the AI assistant. It looks like The Browser Company is bringing some serious smarts to the web browser, and I think Dia is going to be the big hit the company was hoping to have with Arc. If you're interested in signing up for the Dia beta program, fill out the necessary form and wait to be instructed on what to do next (which might take a while). Arc members, meanwhile, have early access, according to the Dia website.

The Browser Company's new AI browser rolls out to private beta testers

The Browser Company's new AI-powered browser is now available in an invite-only beta. Called Dia, the browser was towards the end of 2024, and is built around the deep integration of what its maker calls "the most personal AI on the market". Dia allows you to "chat with your tabs" and will adapt and learn the more you use it. You can open an AI chat on any webpage without having to leave the tab, where the built-in bot can search the web, compare websites, answer questions about the content displayed, and even draft a document in the tone of a specific webpage. You can set preferences to customize the chatbot's tone and style for writing tasks, as well as its coding language and how it talks to you. All of these features live within Dia's URL bar, with the idea being that you don't need to visit dedicated pages for other LLM chatbots such as ChatGPT to get things done with AI. The Browser Company has plenty of rivals, though, not least Google, which last month that it will soon bring its Gemini AI assistant to Chrome, which will be able to do many of the same things as Dia's own chatbot. Opera's also comes with an integrated AI and is being billed as "fully agentic". Back in May, The Browser Company that it had stopped active development on its Arc web browser, shifting its focus to Dia instead. Arc members get instant access to the and invite friends to join once they're signed up to Dia. If you're not a member of either browser you can join the waiting list

Dia, The Browser Company's AI-first browser, launches Mac beta - 9to5Mac

After discontinuing Arc, The Browser Company is back with a new take on its vision for the future of web browsing in the AI era. Dia, its new browser, is now available in beta for existing Arc users on macOS. And while it shares a few design cues from its predecessor, Dia is a very different product with a very different goal. Here's how to test it out. When it first came out, Arc made a deservedly big fuss with its complete reimagining of browser UX. Then it proved too cumbersome and commercially unviable. Wtih Dia, The Browser Company seems to be taking a more focused swing, delivering a more familiar interface to classic browsers, but powered by deeply integrated AI. Whether you're browsing for travel planning, writing, researching, or even shopping, Dia's promise is to offer a sidebar smart assistant that will understand what you're looking at, remember your browsing history, and help you get stuff done. As The Verge's David Pierce explains it: When you ask Dia to find you a coat, the assistant might activate a shopping skill, which knows all the stuff you've been looking at from Amazon and Anthropologie; when you ask it to draft an email, a writing skill can see both all the emails you've written and the authors you love reading. At launch, Dia's core feature is its AI assistant, which you can invoke at any time. It's not just a chatbot floating on top of your browser, but rather a context-aware assistant that sees your tabs, your open sessions, and your digital patterns. You can use it to summarize web pages, compare info across tabs, draft emails based on your writing style, or even reference past searches. The Browser Company says it is building a system of "skills" on top of existing models, designed to match each task with the best AI tool and interface. Ask for help finding a new gadget? It'll route your query to a "shopping skill" that remembers what you were browsing on Amazon. Want to reply to a Slack thread? There's a writing skill for that, too. Each skill is tailored with custom memory and UI for its purpose. The Browser Company says it's approaching this carefully. As Pierce explained in his conversation with Hursh Agrawal, The Browser Company's CTO: Agrawal is also careful to note that all your data is stored and encrypted on your computer. "Whenever stuff is sent up to our service for processing," he says, "it stays up there for milliseconds and then it's wiped." Arc has had a few security issues over time, and Agrawal says repeatedly that privacy and security have been core to Dia's development from the very beginning. Over time, he hopes almost everything in Dia can happen locally. Dia is available today as a beta for Arc users on Mac. It doesn't yet offer all of Arc's features, like side-tab organization or workspaces, but those may come later. For now, it's focused on showing how a browser can feel less like software and more like a browsing partner. Are you excited to try Dia? Let is know in the comments.

AI comes to the URL with a new web browser that answers you back

The AI lets you chat with tabs and will adapt to your style over time The Browser Company has a new way to travel the web using AI. Best known for its Arc browser, the company has introduced a new browser called Dia, which was first teased at the end of last year. This release follows an announcement last month that active development on Arc was winding down and the company would place its full weight behind Dia. Unlike traditional browsers that send users searching across tabs or toggling between tools to get things done, Dia places an AI assistant directly into the browser's address bar. The idea is that instead of opening ChatGPT in another tab or copying content into a separate tool to summarize or rewrite, you just type your question where you'd usually enter a URL. From there, the assistant can search the web, answer questions about the page you're on, compare tabs, or even draft content in the tone of a specific site. Dia is built on Chromium and resembles a standard browser at first glance, but the key differences are found in the way AI suffuses its structure. The AI is omnipresent and customizable, plus there is no need to log in to a separate service. You stay on the page, talk to the browser, and it responds. In many ways, Dia's AI behaves similarly to most other AI chatbots. You can ask it to summarize an article you're reading, help write an email based on your calendar and browser activity, or generate code with your preferred programming language. You can also personalize how the assistant writes for you in terms of style. One of the more distinctive features is the browser's ability to take on the "voice" of a given webpage. If you're reading a corporate blog or product page and want to generate a document in a similar tone, Dia can adapt its output to match the site's style. The features are designed to blend seamlessly with the browser and your other online activities. The AI not only sees your current tabs but also remembers previous interactions, allowing it to use context in its responses. The more you interact with it, the more personalized the AI is supposed to become. Eventually, it will remember your writing preferences and know which tasks you ask for often and surface those options. Dia is currently in an invite-only beta for Mac, though you can sign up for a waiting list to gain access. Dia is arriving as browsers race to incorporate AI, and many AI developers are working on browsers. Google Chrome is testing Gemini-powered overlays and sidebars, Opera has its Neon browser promising a full AI agent experience, and Perplexity has its new Comet browser with AI features. For the many people understandably concerned about privacy when the AI is this clever, The Browser Company claims that Dia handles user context locally where possible and does not send browsing data to third-party providers unless required by the task. Notably, Dia is centering AI as the main way to engage with the browser. The experience is meant to be rooted in user prompts and direct interaction, not automation. It's also worth noting that Dia means The Browser Company no longer sees Arc as worth spending resources on, despite praise for its design and rethinking of tab management. Dia is less about reinventing browser layouts and more about AI as core functions. With AI rapidly becoming embedded in everything you touch online, Dia represents a very direct approach to making generative AI central to going online rather than treating AI as a bolt-on feature. The Browser Company is betting that it can be the primary interface for how users browse the web.