AI·MicrosoftMicrosoft boss says its new AI-infused web browsing experience is ‘a little angel on your shoulder doing the boring hard work’By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezBy Marco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterMarco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterRole: ReporterMarco Quiroz-Gutierrez is a reporter for Fortune covering general news.SEE FULL BIO Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa SuleymanStephen Brashear—Getty ImagesMicrosoft is jumping into the AI browser wars with a bet that making its Edge browser your new personal assistant will help it compete with Google Chrome, as well as upstart jects from OpenAI and Perplexity.
Instead of creating an entirely new browser, the company revamped its Edge web browser with “Copilot Mode,” which lets AI do the hard tasks for you.
While you sit back and watch, Microsoft’s Copilot tool can control your tabs, visit websites, and even book restaurant reservations in what Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman calls a “magical experience.” “It’s almost having a little angel on your shoulder doing the boring hard work of reading reviews, doing price comparisons, synthesizing re, but instead of it happening away from you, you can actually see it in real time unfolding before your eyes,” Suleyman told The Verge.
Copilot will be able to click on buttons, do re, and “read” reviews based on a user’s command, Suleyman explained.
Instead of a ChatGPT-style summary where you get the information you ask for in a separate window, Copilot Mode is more handing over command of your browser to a personal assistant.
But if the user wants to step in at any time they can, he said, and the AI features aren’t mandatory. “You’ll always be in control, and I think the transparency creates trust,” said Suleyman.
Microsoft’s apach to AI web browsing differs from that of the leading browser, Google’s Chrome.
Google in June released “AI Mode” in Chrome, which lets users ask more complex and multipart questions compared with normal , but the results are still isolated on a separate summary tab.
Suleyman believes Microsoft’s advances in getting AI to browse for you give it a leg up.
“We’ve been very deliberate and careful, and that’s going to pay dividends because we have a whole set of features that no one else on the market has today,” Suleyman said.
“I think we’re actually way ahead.” A Google spokesperson declined to on Microsoft’s Edge to Fortune. However, Microsoft faces an uphill battle to take on Chrome’s 69% market .
The Edge browser currently stands at third place globally, with 5% market . Competition is also heating up.
AI startup Perplexity (which bid $34.5 billion to try to buy Chrome earlier this year) launched its AI web browser Comet in July, and OpenAI is reportedly close to releasing its own web browser.
Google, for its part, appears to be ing Edge by “ more advanced agentic capabilities for Gemini in Chrome that can perform multistep tasks for you from start to finish, ordering groceries,” it said in a blog post last week.
Despite the odds, Suleyman is optimistic, and noted people will want to use an AI browser because it will make their s easier.
“In a few years’ time it will be doing all the work for you, and you’ll be passively overseeing it, steering it, giving back,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be a magical experience, and a lot of people will choose to move to that.” Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh.
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