OpenAI's side quests keep ending in homicide
In October, OpenAI launched Atlas, its “agentic browser” that was going to re-invent how you surf the web. We’re in July and it’s already a corpse. They didn’t even bother with a dignified burial.
It’s going to be harvested for parts and turned into a Chrome extension. Whatever Frankenstein-monster-like thing that turns out to be…
A standalone browser isn’t exactly a moonshot next to training a frontier large language model, yet OpenAI still couldn't be bothered to keep the lights on.
This is not a new pattern. A few months ago, Sora, their video tool backed by a billion-dollar Disney deal, was taken out back and shot in the face.
The common thread here is: anything that isn’t the core business model gets treated like a “side quest” – and when that quest becomes boring or finance asks about ROI, it gets a bullet to the head. OpenAI didn’t invent this move: Google, Salesforce, Meta, … they’ve all played the game.
If you’ve built workflows, integrations, muscle memory, or habits around a product like this, you don’t get a vote when the axe falls. You get a migration headache and, if you’re lucky, a “wonderful journey coming to an end” blog post.
As I’ve said before, the lesson isn’t “don’t use generative AI tools”, it’s not even “don’t use new tools”. It’s: assume anything outside of a vendor’s core product is disposable by design, and build accordingly.
Diversify, make sure exports are easy, and don’t let convenience today become a headache you can’t treat tomorrow.
Colin