Atlas is being discontinued, but none of the currently proposed replacements preserve one of its most important and distinctive capabilities:

the ability to browse the web manually while having an ordinary ChatGPT conversation that can understand the active webpage.

I am not asking for an agent to operate the browser on my behalf.

I am not asking for a Codex workflow or an isolated Work task.

I am asking to preserve a different interaction model:

  1. The user navigates the web normally.

  2. ChatGPT can read the active page when permission is granted.

  3. The user can discuss that page in a regular Chat conversation.

  4. The conversation can continue naturally across follow-up questions and, ideally, inside an existing Project.

Why the current replacements are not equivalent

The new desktop application and the Chrome sidebar route browser interaction primarily into Work or Codex-style workflows.

Those workflows may be useful for delegating tasks, but they are not equivalent to an ordinary ChatGPT dialogue.

In Atlas, I can remain in control of the browsing process while using ChatGPT as a thinking partner beside the page. I can read, question, compare, challenge, interpret, and gradually develop an understanding of the material.

This is fundamentally different from asking an agent to complete a predefined task.

Pasting a URL into ChatGPT is also not an adequate replacement because many pages are:

  • authenticated;

  • dynamically generated;

  • dependent on their current UI state;

  • accessible only within a personal account;

  • meaningful in relation to what is currently visible or selected.

Uploading screenshots or copying text manually breaks the flow of research and loses much of the live page context.

Why this interaction model matters

Atlas supports a valuable human-in-the-loop mode of working:

  • the human retains agency and decides where to navigate;

  • ChatGPT provides interpretation and reasoning;

  • the webpage becomes shared conversational context;

  • understanding develops through an ongoing dialogue rather than an isolated task.

This is especially important for research, education, technical documentation, complex interfaces, long-form reading, professional analysis, and any workflow where the goal is not merely to complete an action but to understand something deeply.

It may not be the most common use case, but it is a unique capability that ordinary browsers and ordinary ChatGPT do not provide separately.

Request

Please consider at least one of the following:

  1. Continue supporting Atlas, even if only for existing users or in a reduced maintenance mode.

  2. Add live active-page context to regular Chat mode in the new ChatGPT desktop application.

  3. Allow the Chrome sidebar to use ordinary Chat conversations, not only Work or Codex tasks.

  4. Allow users to attach the current browser tab to any existing Chat or Project.

  5. Preserve explicit permission controls so that webpage access remains transparent and user-controlled.

The essential requirement is simple:

Let users browse manually and talk with ordinary ChatGPT about the page they are currently viewing.

Please do not replace this collaborative thinking experience entirely with agentic task execution.

Atlas demonstrated that this interaction model is possible. Losing it would remove an important and genuinely innovative way of communicating with ChatGPT.

I hope OpenAI will clarify whether this capability is planned before Atlas becomes unavailable on August 9.

Related community requests

Other users have raised closely related concerns in topics titled:

  • “Please let us keep using Atlas — ChatGPT is not the same experience”

  • “Exploring alternatives to Atlas for continuous web browsing context”

  • “Please preserve the Atlas Project workflow in the ChatGPT Chrome extension”

These requests describe different parts of the same underlying need: preserving ordinary ChatGPT conversations with live webpage context, rather than limiting browser access to isolated Work or Codex tasks.

The topics can be found through the community search using the titles above. I will add direct links when my account permissions allow it.