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The AI Browser wars are heating up. Openi and other AI companies like Confusion are getting a lot of attention with their new Ai-First Ai-Aliic Browsers. They are positioned as direct competition to Google, which currently holds a 70% share of the Chrome browser market. As the incumbent, Google is slow to respond to the Shift in AI search – the participation of Gemini, widely seen as competitors of competitors who come from an Ai-first from one day.
This is understandable, because a $100 billion business is a big, unproductive animal to pivot. That leaves room for new guys to maneuver, who basically start with blank slates, and free reign for change.
Enter Neo, released for worldwide use today – the next step in Norton’s AI journey, building the world’s first secure and zero-prompt AI browser. From the beginning, the minds behind Neo made a deliberate choice to focus on a proactive ai assistant instead of chasing agricultural trends. Even those who are willing to accept face risks that many do not own, along with new safety and privacy concerns.
Howie xu, Gen’s chief AI & Innovation officer, describes Neo as a browser that helps you with questions, reminders, and extra steps without prompting or extra steps.
"It’s like a very intelligent assistant sitting next to me, helping me absorb and process information more broadly, more powerfully," XU says. "That assistant is there when you’re reading, when you’re checking, when you’re working on an online project. And based on your interests and browsing, your assistant will help you every step of the way."
Borrowing from Norton’s unique security expertise, privacy and security are also integrated from the ground up.
"What makes us unique is that we give people peace of mind and AI functionality at the same time," XU explained. "Norton’s roots are in security. We’re the only game in town to build a native AI browser from the ground up with security and privacy at its core—or use your data for training.
The difference is zero-quick
Comet (Werplexity) and Atlasi (Openi) were built by chat-first companies that think proactively asking questions. But getting value from AI requires cognitive effort: you have to know what to ask, switch to “Question mode,” and understand what the model can do. Asking a question isn’t the hard part; Knowing what to ask requires Meta-Cognition – knowing what you don’t know – which makes chatgpt back in the middle of browsing feel better.
Neo takes the opposite approach. Instead of waiting for you to inspire it, it primarily offers summaries, reminders, relevant news, and even questions you’re likely to check.
"Based on my browsing interests, Neo reminds me of events I want to attend, deals with personalized news, and presents pre-watch questions I want to check," XU explained. "In other words, I don’t have to form a quick prompt – I simply click on the AI views expected for me as I prompt. “
Since most people don’t know the limits of AI technology or how to optimize effective prompts, expecting them to lead to conversation is unrealistic for many people.
"We decided to shift the burden from the people. You can still ask questions, of course, but we are planning for those who want less cognitive load and want the AI to do the first step," He said. Like the recommendations facing any news or marketing area, Neo leverages browsing context to anticipate the right content at the right moment.
NEO can summarize a page and anticipate questions based on your interests and behaviors. With consent, it can also create detailed reminders – for example, detecting repeated visits to formula 1 websites and prompting you about upcoming races. Control remains with the person using NEO: If an interest is lost, they can retrieve it from Neo’s configuration memory.
Since the browsing history and preferences of Neo are stored locally and safely, it is possible to customize the prompts, views of the recommendations of the recommendations of the NEO chat interface. The result is an AI-Powbed browser that provides the benefits of AI without prompting to type. Inline actions such as “Summary,” “Add to Calendar?”
A calm security design experience
“The calmness of the design” guides the development of Neo, and for xu that comes to three things: Control, everything is a clean, everything in a clean experience that is easier.
Decades of Norton’s Advanced Security Expertise, Neo’s peace of mind begins with privacy and protection. XU sees it as Neo’s Bedrock Talk: The Company doesn’t know what you’re doing, because all personal data stays on the device except as clearly allowed otherwise.
The norms supported by Norton prevent the risks of inducing other AI Browsers, ensured by the synchronization of the devices approved by the user.
Norton also brings deep intelligence: Decades of scanning the bulk of the Internet and advances in antivirus capabilities that now understand static and runtime web content. That real insight allows Neo to build in Antivirus, anti-phishing, and anti-scam technology to detect and shut down malicious behavior and content the moment it’s spotted.
"When we think about peace of mind, what we really mean is delivering value consistently, in a reliable way, in a way that people have peace of mind," XU says. "This is very different from the scheme of aggressive attacks where the result is completely unpredictable, not to mention the related latency and overhead. I believe that consistency is a must for us to push an ai browser to a large population. We also have many capabilities as well, but our main goal is that people can use it in their daily life without worrying about all the vulnerabilities introduced by most browsers. Because we are calm, reliable and safe by design, we believe we will win the hearts of an audience."
For anyone looking to make a strong transition to AI-Powered browsing, NEO shows how Norton’s compromise, security, and zero-speed design are all in one experience. See it in action on Neobrowser.i.
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