Dia ●

June 11, 2025

Dia was made available to Arc users today.

I've actually used and enjoyed Arc for the past couple of years. The side bar concept resonated with me and I came to really rely on Arc as my primary browser. As a result, I have early access and thought I'd try out the beta.

For those catching up, in the last few months, The Browser Company (i.e., makers of Arc) made the bizarre decision of pre-announcing (a) a successor browser, Dia, with an entirely different philosophy (i.e., AI first) and (b) that they'd be placing Arc into life support mode as a result.

I'm generally comfortable with change and tend to find backlash to tactical/strategic changes for products to be overblown. But, in this case, I think The Browser Company has significantly undermined their credibility. And, having tried out Dia for a couple of hours, I think their overall viability/trajectory is in question.

Some thoughts:

• Dia can be viewed either of two ways:

1. Basically just Chrome, but with a chatbot side bar. (The Browser Company loves side bars.) When you visit a page, you can talk to an AI assistant about the content on those pages and in your history. You can compare tabs when shopping or have it write email for you. All the fairly obvious things you could imagine. Over time, it's supposed to become more and more attuned to your behaviour.
2. Or you could view it as a chatbot app for macOS — like ChatGPT — but with a built-in browser. (I think they'd prefer for you see it this way, but it's unclear.) You can chat with Dia as you would ChatGPT/Claude/etc. Discuss ideas, handle work, etc. as you would with any other tool. But, by virtue of the fact that it's also a browser and has access to your history, you can then interact with various web apps, documents, etc. which could theoretically create for a richer, contextual chatbot experience without having to use different apps.

• That's all fine in principle, but, in reality, if you use native apps for email, documents, or otherwise — or if you want to rely on ChatGPT or another AI provider — then I can't see why you'd throw your lot in with Dia. They say it's to avoid context switching — using separate apps to handle tasks — but, given the limitations above, that's an inevitability. If you go all-in on Dia, there's a lot riding on them eventually coming to other platforms and/or broadening the functionality to tap into other apps. All of which feels quite unlikely. I can use ChatGPT on all my devices today as an assistant to (maybe) hone/augment my web usage. With Dia, I can use it on my Mac and with an entirely different underlying platform, limiting the opportunity for use elsewhere or cross-platform.

• Elements of the UI are slightly more polished/design-forward than Chrome.

• The chatbot is fine. It's as responsive as you'd expect. But it appears to just be a web front-end for Gemini, packaged up as an isolated version for Dia.

• The onboarding is revealing. You can personalise Dia to your needs, as you would with other chatbots. The first question they ask, though, immediately sets a strange tone: "Who inspires you or shapes your taste? List some influences and Dia will respond in their voice." In the ensuing text box, it shows the hint "Share a few writers, public figures or brands you love." So, what, please make Dia sound like a combination of Abraham Lincoln and McDonald's? Joe Rogan and Everlane? It's an arresting, silly question and, in my case, I totally skipped past all the personalisation options as a result.

• I just don't see it with Dia. There's a glossy launch effect, as with Arc. Beyond that, there's no whimsy or excitement or a-ha! moments at all. Asking a chatbot to summarise the content immediately to the left of it — or to share reviews or otherwise — feels like something I can do with so many other tools at this point. Referencing multiple tabs to make a shopping comparison is nice, I guess, but I think they're aiming for a behaviour type that's already been solved with general AI/LLM usage. If I'm an "AI-first" user, I'd likely start out with ChatGPT suggesting potential products for me — replete with comparisons, summaries of reviews, etc. — and then I'd shop. Not the other way around. I could do that in Dia, but, as I'm at their behest for model selection/partners/etc., can I really be confident I'm getting the best possible insights/perspective?

• If I wrote email in-line in Gmail or code directly in Github, maybe there'd be some helpful functionality there. But I don't. So I can't comment, but I feel confident I know the output would be fine and/or the same as all other tools out there.

In all, I think they've built a decently attractive skin for Chrome. It's somewhat privacy-minded on the surface, but poses a tremendous amount of questions a level deeper. It has a built-in adblocker and compatibility with Chrome extensions, which is handy. But I can't think of any compelling reason to use Dia as my primary browser today. And I do not see a future where this becomes widely adopted.

Arc had an opinion and a point of differentiation. Plenty of whimsy and a-ha! moments. I'd sometimes use it occupying 70% of my display with ChatGPT open in the remaining 30%. Similar experience, albeit with separate apps! I think I prefer it that way. This feels soulless and, worse, pointless.

If there was a clear perspective as to how an AI-first browser might help in my day-to-day, great. I'm open to ideas. But this is not it. (Joe captures this well on Mastodon.) And, by virtue of their track record, I hardly have any trust that they'll get there in due course.

Where do they go from here? I think there's a non-zero possibility that, after Dia is greeted with ambivalence, they opt to do something related to Arc again. A quick glance at /r/diabrowser shows that a lot of users have found a way to bring the Arc side bar to Dia, which actually looks interesting. Maybe they'll do that?

Regardless, their credibility and perspective is in a significantly diminished place, having abandoned something thoughtful for an obvious grab at something (anything) buzzy in AI.

I don't wish them any ill. It might just be that I'm not the right user for Dia. If I'm right, though, I hope they're able to turn it around. They clearly have the capability to do really interesting things. I remain a fan of Arc and am in the process of (reluctantly) transitioning away from it.

At the time of writing, though, The Browser Company's website shows a mission statement squarely critiquing most web browsers with landscape tab bars at the top. "It's just a frame, with some buttons and toolbars." This is clearly a shot at Chrome and, throughout the site, links to their product, Arc, as a solution.

I cannot believe they've cancelled Arc and launched Dia — which now looks exactly like the browser experience they're critiquing — without updating their website and messaging. It speaks far more volumes than anything else I've written here.

Nice app icon, though.