Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
ChatGPT has launched its own web browser, “ChatGPT Atlas,” which integrates ChatGPT into the web browsing experience. Atlas is currently only available on Mac, but a Windows version is coming in the future.
How does ChatGPT Atlas work?
ChatGPT Atlas is built on the Chrome engine and implements ChatGPT within the browser, allowing it to assist you on any page. The ChatGPT Sidebar is intuitive and knows which page you’re on, understanding the content. Other features include:
- Browser Memories – Much like a standard browser history, but easier to navigate. E.g. “Can you help me find the Keyword Research tool I used last week?” It can then use its browser memories to take you to the correct site.
- Agent Mode – A tool that allows you to let ChatGPT take over the browsing experience for you. E.g. doing a competitor research report, ChatGPT will open tabs, compare competitors, gather data and create a report for you. This feature is only available to Plus or Pro users.
Issues with ChatGPT Atlas
ChatGPT Atlas has been built on the Chrome engine, which could cause a potential issue for SEO and PPC. This is because, as it’s built on Google Chrome, it cannot distinguish the activity of the ChatGPT bot that is being used to aid in web browsing from an actual web user. This means that ChatGPT Atlas could mess with advertising, budgets and analytics by clicking on Ads. It could also hugely distort GA4 traffic data for SEOs as it is visiting websites, making metrics unreliable.
What this means for Marketers
Just like with many other AI tools that have come before it, one of the biggest benefits it seems of using ChatGPT Atlas seems to be its speed at gathering information, making it a great tool for users to improve their workflow and productivity. However, if Google doesn’t find a way to track AI Chatbots crawlers, this could have a long-lasting and damaging impact on the role of data analysis in marketing, having to account for unreliable traffic, which will impact ROI and results.
