Atlassian is acquiring a US browser company to “reimagine the browser for knowledge workers in the AI era”.
The software giant will pay $US610 million ($936 million) for The Browser Company, developers of the Arc and Dia browsers, with plans to create an AI-powered browser that is designed for the workplace rather than consumers.
Rather than taking on Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari head on, the aim is to transform Dia into the go-to browser for knowledge workers. At present Dia is in beta testing.
It is unclear how Atlassian plans to commercialise Dia, but it appears unlikely to be solely reliant on advertising revenue. When signing up to its sister browser Arc, users are asked if they would like to block ads.
Atlassian said Dia will be fully integrated with workplace tools, including Atlassian’s own suite of products.
In a company blog announcing the acquisition, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon Brookes said that most browsers were designed for browsing, not working, and they are “a bystander in your workflow, treating every tab the same, with no awareness of your work context, no understanding of your priorities, and no help connecting the dots between your tools.”
“It’s time for a browser that’s actually built for work – a browser that helps you do, not just browse,” Cannon-Brookes said.
“We have the potential to change the way 1 billion knowledge workers use AI to get work done in their browser.”
The Browser Company co-founder and CEO Josh Miller said joining Atlassian will give the company “the resources, distribution, and monetisation muscle” to realise its vision of an “internet computer”.
“It means we can hire faster, ship faster, and bring Dia to more people. We can now invest in cross-platform support and secure syncing, train custom AI models designed specifically for Dia, and turn ambitious ideas about ‘computer use’ and ‘memory’ into reality.”
Atlassian is entering the browser sector at a time when it is ripe for disruption and search engines get replaced by AI-powered answer machines.
The dominant browser in the market, Google Chrome this week avoided a break up with its parent company, Alphabet, in a US court.
