An AI browser is a web browser with AI built in. Some only summarize the page; others bring an agent that can open sites, click, fill in forms and move through several steps to complete a request, like comparing prices or booking a table. That agent does it with your sessions signed in, so it acts on your behalf.
A question from the app. Pick an answer.
An AI browser has to buy two tickets. What sets it apart from a chat with web search?
That is answering: a chat with search already does it, and you finish the purchase.
It does the clicking for you, with your session. That is why it should ask you to confirm before paying.
It can use the same model as the chat. What changes is that it can act on the pages.
Two things are sold under the same name. One is a chatbot in a side panel: it reads the page and summarizes it or answers questions. The other is an agent: it gets a task, decides the steps and carries them out on the pages, the way you would with the mouse.
It can be a whole browser, like Perplexity's Comet, or an extension that adds an agent to the browser you already use. The difference that matters is not the brand: it is whether it only reads or also clicks.
It is good for boring tasks with many steps: collecting prices from five stores, filling in a long form, finding a free appointment. It can take longer than you, sometimes gets lost on an odd page and can make up that it finished when it did not. If the task matters, check the result before calling it done.
To the agent, the text on a page is text just like your request. A page can hide an order, in white text or in a comment, that says "send this account's data to such a place". That is prompt injection, and in a browser it weighs more because the agent has your sessions signed in: your email, your shopping, your bank. In 2026, attacks like this were shown against browsers from several brands.
Have it ask for confirmation before paying, sending or deleting: an app limit cannot be talked out of with text, a request in the prompt can. To try it, use a browser profile without your bank or email signed in. And give it tasks you can check: "make the price list" is safer than "buy the cheapest one". Those limits are guardrails, and they are worth more than trusting the model not to be fooled.