Atlassian is set to acquire The Browser Company of New York, the company behind the Arc and Dia browsers. Through this acquisition, Atlassian aims to build a browser that better aligns with the daily work of knowledge workers.
Atlassian is buying The Browser Company of New York for $610 million. The deal is intended to solve a problem perceived by Atlassian. According to Atlassian, most browsers are not designed with productivity in mind. They treat each tab equally, regardless of the task or context. Much of knowledge workers’ work today happens in a browser, but Atlassian believes it offers too little support in carrying out that work.
With the acquisition of The Browser Company, Atlassian wants to change that. The focus is on Dia: a browser currently available in beta and already packed with AI functionality. It will better integrate with SaaS applications such as email, project management, and design software. By adding context to tabs and linking relevant information to specific tasks, the browser should better align with how people effectively work.
With AI
In concrete terms, this means: ‘AI’. Artificial intelligence in the browser should help to make connections between apps, tabs, and tasks. Atlassian wants this AI to be not just informative, but to actively assist in carrying out work. The goal is a browser that is not a passive display of web pages, but a tool that organizes and accelerates work.
Security also plays an important role. Therefore, Dia will come standard with security and compliance features, allowing companies to use the browser safely within their organization.
In the announcement of the acquisition, Atlassian frequently refers to problems with so-called old browsers, which are supposedly not suitable for SaaS applications. The main goal of the acquisition seems to be to bring context to browser tabs via AI. This implies that AI will also have access to what happens in those tabs.
How Atlassian will reconcile this with the importance of security remains to be seen. It’s also unclear to what extent companies worldwide are actually waiting for an alternative browser that isn’t content with just displaying SaaS applications. Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and CEO of Atlassian, thinks in any case that it’s necessary “to reinvent the browser for knowledge work in the AI era.”