Why You Need an Agentic Browser: How Atlas & Comet Transform Everyday Work
Shift+Command+4 started to feel like an embedded reflex in my hands.
I had 47 screenshots on my desktop.
Every single one was a different view of our CRM, each one proved that the AI assistant had absolutely no idea what my screen actually looked like.
"Click on Integrations."
"That menu doesn't exist."
"You got me there! Go to Settings > Advanced."
"Still no."
Screenshot. Paste. Explain. Repeat.
This was my life for months. I'd ask GPT, Gemini, or Claude to help me fix something in our CRM or accounting software, configure our meeting recorder, or untangle some nightmare in ClickUp.
And every single time, we'd end up in this tedious loop where I was manually bridging the gap between what the AI thought should be there and what was actually on my screen.
The AI was smart. The instructions were confident. But the UI? The UI never matched the manual.
And I was stuck in the middle, playing telephone between an LLM and a labyrinth of nested menus.
If you've tried to get AI to help you with Salesforce, QuickBooks, Teams, or literally any enterprise SaaS tool, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Then something changed.
The Day My Browser Started Doing My Job
I was sitting on a plastic bench at my daughter's gymnastics class, annoyed.
Annoyed because I was supposed to be done with work for the day, but our CRM reports were broken. Again.
Not broken in a "call support" way. Broken in a "this conditional logic builder was designed by someone who hates humans" way.
I'd been putting off fixing it for weeks because I knew what it meant: hours of clicking through menus, testing filters, creating automations, and probably giving up halfway through.
But then I had a random thought: When Agentic browsers hit the scene, I played with them for a while. I thought it was kind of fun that they would find me. I mean, I thought it was cute that they would occasionally find a working discount code for an online purchase.
And then I went back to using Chrome.
But if the embedded chat In the agentic browser. could already see my screen, it would save me a lot of back-and-forth with calling it out, with screenshots every time it gave me poor instructions.
I opened up my CRM in Atlas (OpenAI's browser) and asked my first question in the sidebar AI chat
"The way this is set up, you need an automation to prep the data before the report will work. Want me to build it?"
(only expecting some better advice) Um...build it? Sure, browser. Go ahead.
And then it just... started building it.
Was it fast? No. It clicked around like a slightly confused intern on day one. Very slow. A little convoluted. But it went to the right places. It opened menus I didn't even know existed. It created the automation, tested it, named it, and saved it.
I just sat there watching my daughter practice cartwheels while my browser quietly fixed a workflow I'd been avoiding for a month.
That's when it hit me: this isn't a chatbot anymore. This is a different kind of tool entirely.
What "Agentic Browser" Actually Means (Without the Buzzwords)
"Agentic" is one of those words that sounds like marketing just invented. And it kind of did. But here's what it actually means:
You give the tool an outcome. Not a list of steps.
Old way:
"How do I clean up these duplicates in my CRM?"
Click here. Then scroll down. Then click this other thing. Now type this."
New way:
"Clean up the duplicate contacts in my CRM using these rules."
"Fix the notification settings so my team stops getting spammed."
"Build this report and make sure the numbers actually make sense based on these rules."
Under the hood, tools like Atlas and Comet are doing three things:
Seeing what's on the page (not just the HTML, but what it actually looks like)
Acting on it (clicking, typing, scrolling, submitting forms)
Reasoning about what to do next when things don't match the script
At first, it was truly mesmerizing to watch it think and work. And honestly, I was a little bit nervous about it poking around all the fragile conditions of our CRM, so I supervised it like a toddler.
But after it knocked 4 reports out of the park, I started letting it run parallel workstreams in multiple tabs while I worked on something else entirely.
For anyone who spends a chunk of their day inside web apps, this changes the math on what's worth your time.
Instead of "I have to click through this myself," it becomes "I have to explain this clearly once."
And by once, I truly mean once beause you can also "call" one of your custom GPTs with pre-defined instructions right inside of the Atlas browser.
That's a different equation altogether.
Four Things These Browsers Are Surprisingly Good At
After exploring Atlas for a while, here are a few utility patterns I see emerging:
1. Anything buried three menus deep
If it's hidden behind Settings > Advanced > Obscure Toggle That Nobody Understands, an agentic browser will probably handle it better than you will.
Examples:
Fixing notification chaos in Slack or Teams
Cleaning up routing rules in your ticketing system
Updating permissions across your HR tool without losing your mind
2. The "click this 50 times" workflows nobody wanted to automate
Technically, you could always automate these. Realistically? Nobody ever did.
Bulk updating records when there's no nice API
Going through a list of deals/tickets/candidates and tagging them based on simple rules
Closing out old campaigns or projects that are just cluttering everything
3. Research that actually goes somewhere
Normal AI is great at finding information. Terrible at doing anything with it.
Agentic browsers connect those dots:
Pulling meeting notes and actually logging them properly in your CRM
Checking vendor invoices against what's in their portal
Reading through product docs, finding the relevant settings, and then applying them
4. "Show me how... then just do it"
This is the one that killed the screenshot dance for me.
"Configure this pipeline the way you just described."
"Set up this SSO integration end to end."
"Wire up this chatbot so it routes questions the right way."
Tl;dr: any time you understand what needs to happen, but you're dreading the 30 minutes of clicking through another SaaS interface to make it real.
Atlas vs Comet: Which One Do You Actually Need?
Both are agentic browsers. Both let AI see and interact with the web. But they feel different in practice.
Use Atlas when:
You already live in ChatGPT and want that same AI operating your tools directly
You're on a Mac and want something built specifically for this use case
You care about having one vendor handle the model, the agent, and the browser
Use Comet when:
You do a ton of research (constantly asking "what's happening with this account/market/competitor?")
You want AI-first search and summarization as your default way to navigate
You want an agentic browser but don't need it tied to ChatGPT
Honestly? You don't have to choose. I know people who use Atlas for "do work in SaaS tools" and Comet for "research and think." Especially if you're the kind of person with two monitors and more tabs open than you're willing to admit.
How To Start Without Overcomplicating It
I'm really writing this for myself. Once you start to see the potential of an agendic browser, it's difficult not to get lost in the paradox of choice.
Pick one browser (Atlas, Comet, whatever you can get your hands on)
Pick one annoying, click-heavy thing you do constantly
Ask the browser to handle it, and watch what happens
If you start getting as excited as I did, here are some other things to explore:
Pick up exactly where you left off: Atlas’s “memory” feature means it doesn’t just open your tabs: it remembers what you were doing, allows you to ask “what did I last research on X?” and restores context for your next session.
Inline AI help, right in the workflow: Highlight text in an email, doc or webpage and ask Atlas to rewrite, polish or summarize it in place. No copy-pasting, no switching apps.
Automate multi-step tasks across tabs: Use “Agent mode” to tell Atlas to research, compare sources, even fill out web flows for you. Multiple tabs, multiple steps; just give the command and it goes off on its own.
One Thing Nobody Tells You About Tokens (or privacy)
These browsers are amazing until you realize they're burning through tokens like you're running twenty space heaters.
I learned this mid-workflow. I'd spent a couple of hours letting Atlas handle CRM report building and automation tasks, and suddenly everything just stopped. I'd hit my token limit. Right in the middle of a click.
I bought more immediately because the ROI was obvious. But here's what surprised me: Atlas (GPT-5.1) couldn't tell me exactly how many tokens each task was using. Not even an estimate.
Here's why: every time an agentic browser does something, it's using tokens for:
Looking at the page
Figuring out what to do next
Planning the action
Taking the action
Looking at the page again to see what changed
So a "simple" task like building a report might actually be dozens of these perception-action loops. It's not linear. And it's not transparent.
Two things to know:
Start with small tasks so you get a feel for how fast you're burning through tokens
If you find a workflow you're going to repeat a lot, consider building a cheaper automation for it instead of running the full agent every time
These tools are powerful. But they're not free.
WARNING: While these AI-powered browsing tools are impressive, you should think carefully before handing over sensitive information. Atlas can interact with websites on your behalf, which means it could potentially access your saved passwords, autofill data, and browsing history.
If you're entering credit card details or logging into banking sites while Atlas is active, you're essentially giving an AI agent the keys to the kingdom. We don't yet have long-term data on how securely these systems store session data, whether they log your financial information, or how well they're protected from potential breaches.
Remember: this is new and evolving tech - and regulatory. Until we better understand the privacy implications, it's probably wise to exclude agentic browsers from anything involving financial transactions or highly personal information. When in doubt, handle your sensitive stuff the old-fashioned way: pecking and clicking manually, in a regular browser session.
Find your next edge,
Eli
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