AI browsers or agentic browsers: a look at the future of web surfing

#learning #security #ai

Author: Pieter Arntz
Source: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/ai/2025/09/ai-browsers-or-agentic-browsers-a-look-at-the-future-of-web-surfing

Summary

AI-browsers or Agentic Web Browsers are a new generation of web browsers that are quickly emerging as the AI bubble keeps booming. However, there are still some significant challenges in place, such as security risks

Takeaways

• AI-powered browsers or Agentic Web Browsers are different from regular web browsers with AI-plugins enabled in the sense that Agentic Web Browsers directly embed the AI agents into the user-experience of web browsing with no need of additional downloads or making new AI-agent accounts
• Agentic Web Browsers can browse the web, download files, automate workflows and summarize content on your web browser without the user having to manually open tabs and keep feeding it with information.
• The user can also directly talk to its chat interface to feed its prompts.
• Popular browsers at the time of writing this article include:
  • Dia - made by The Browser Company of New York, the same company that worked on Arc; an AI-first browser
  • Fellou - known as the first agentic browser has its open-source Eko 2.0 framework to build custom AI agents and workflows into the AI Browser
  • Comet - made by Perplexity, which became popular for their web-search engine of the same name; a standalone Chromium-based Browser
  • Sigma Browser - claims to be privacy conscious with end-to-end encryption; not to be confused with Sigma OS (a web browser that has been largely compared to Arc)
  • Opera Neon - made by Opera, who are known for their Opera browser (and now Opera Air and Opera GX as well)
• Notably, from the Agentic browsers mentioned above, it looks like only Fellou and Comet are not in Beta phase or invite-only
• Pros:
  • Lesser tabs
  • Browser Management can be done directly through the AI Agent
  • Direct integration of anti-phishing tools, malware blocking, and sandboxing
  • Some have end-to-end encryption to protect user data
  • Many process information locally
  • good for people who have deep workflows and require automating tasks to increase productivity
• Cons:
  • Security vulnerabilities, such as the one presented by Brave in an article on Agentic Browser Security
  • Not all are in compliance with global data regulations
  • Some use the cloud to process information, so data is not stored locally
  • not for people who handle sensitive information
• Here's a food for thought: since Cars are already the worst product category when it comes to privacy, what would become of cars that get integrated with AI capabilities?