The Memory Wars: How Context-Rich AI Could Turn Your Browser into the New OS

Welcome to Lore Brief, your weekly edge in the age of AI.

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The Memory Wars: How Context-Rich AI Could Turn Your Browser into the New OS

Last week I shared Andrej Karpathy’s claim that English is the new code and AI agents will replace traditional software.

This week I’m thinking more and more about the idea of AI becoming the OS. And it feels like the most straightforward path there is creating a new browser with persistent memory. Which apparently is what a few companies are already working on. Most notably Perplexity with their upcoming Comet browser (I suggest you join the waitlist).

AI starts acting like an OS. Sam Altman calls ChatGPT's new memory "my favorite feature." Once an agent remembers your projects, habits and quirks, it stops acting like a chatbot and starts launching tasks, opening apps and retrieving files on its own. Memory turns AI from tool into platform.

In his recent interview with YC's Gary Tan, Altman went even further. When Tan asked if we'll have a future where everything is done through an AI that interfaces with all your tools "through a browser or as an assistant," Altman said yes, that will definitely happen.

I completely agree. Before persistent memory, every conversation with ChatGPT felt like the movie "50 First Dates" where I had to re-introduce myself and explain my projects from scratch. Now when I open ChatGPT, it knows who I am and has context on my work, making it infinitely more useful as both a business advisor and life advisor. I can't help but imagine how incredible it would be if this applied to every part of AI and everything I do on the internet. How much more could it help me if it knew all the stuff I'm working on across every tool and browser tab?

Browsers finally found the missing piece. Remember when Google launched Chrome OS in 2011, betting that "the web is the platform"? Or when Marc Andreessen famously said "software is eating the world" and predicted browsers would become the dominant computing interface? Those visions never fully materialized because tabs had zero long-term context. You'd bookmark something, forget where you put it, and start over. Now AI browsers such as Perplexity Comet pair large models with private vector stores. One prompt surfaces any note, highlight or open tab without context-switching. Comet calls itself a personal knowledge layer, the connective tissue between everything you read.

It feels like AI with memory could finally turn Browsers into the OS. The main way we interact with everything on our computers. Which, makes this an existential threat to Microsoft, Apple and even Google.

Apple's existential browser threat. Bloomberg and Reuters say Apple has discussed buying Perplexity. Everyone assumes it's because of their search product. I think it's actually because of Comet. If browsers with memory become the new operating system, Apple needs to own that layer. Otherwise, people will stop using Safari and switch to memory-powered browsers that act like ChatGPT. That kills Apple's app ecosystem entirely. Why download apps when your browser remembers everything and can handle any task?

What memory changes. A browser that owns your memory owns your workflow. Instead of PageRank deciding what you see, your AI agent retrieves what you saw last week. Instead of cookies splintered across sites, you have one encrypted personal vector store. Instead of interruptive ads, you get task-based help drawn from your history. The lock-in becomes much stronger too: switching browsers means moving all your memories.

The neutral memory play. Not every company wants its knowledge locked inside Safari, ChatGPT or Comet. One recent startup taking an interesting approach is Super Memory, an open source 'universal memory API' that allows you to stream events in, query context out, and carry the endpoint from tool to tool. Portable brain in a URL. I really hope that a solution like this wins so our memories aren’t controlled by one company.

The bottom line: We're 3-6 months from memory-powered browsers going mainstream. The question isn't whether this happens but which company ends up controlling the memory layer that powers your AI workflow.

Things are only going to accelerate and get weirder from here.

I'll be writing more about this over the next few weeks as Perplexity has given me access to try Comet. I'm going hands-on with Super Memory and other memory and browser tools to see how this plays out in practice.

The Next Wave: These 12 AI Agent Use Cases Can Save You 1000s of Hours in 2025

1In this week's episode of The Next Wave: Flo Crivello reveals how Lindy AI agents work 100x faster than humans, handling everything from phone calls to business automation. → Watch | Listen

Things I’m Learning From

• [Link] – DeepMind's AlphaGenome AI can predict how any DNA mutation affects gene regulation across the entire genome, making biology programmable.

• [Link] – Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware - Interview with YC

• [Link] – Microsoft Is Having an Incredibly Embarrassing Problem With Its AI

That’s it for today.

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-Nathan Lands
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(Disclosure: I may own equity in companies mentioned in Lore Brief.)