October 23, 2025 · JustSayAI

OpenAI’s Browser Is a Horse-Drawn Train—Alibaba Already Won the Race

OpenAI and ByteDance may sport sky-high valuations, but in the endgame of AI they’re third-tier—one slip from relegation.

Why? Neither owns a true “can’t-delete” app. WeChat is oxygen; Taobao is plumbing; delete Douyin and you might actually sleep better. The real protagonists are first-tier Alibaba and Google, second-tier Tencent and Apple.

Atlas, the horse-drawn train: Silicon Valley’s entry-point anxiety

I’m sick of talking about OpenAI. Sora just dropped and Altman hands me an “Atlas” browser. It’s 2025 and the world’s most advanced AI lab is shipping a turn-of-the-millennium product. Rambo Liu joked he’d forgotten what a browser even is.

Welcome back to the 2000 browser wars. Perplexity and OpenAI now bribe users—$20 cash or a free week of Plus—just to set them as default. Translation: OpenAI is panicking.

Either growth has stalled and they’re flailing, or Altman is spray-and-praying with investor money. Either way, the product looks rushed and half-baked: Mac-only, tiny footprint. In the age of agents, why rebuild a human browser? My hot take: tomorrow’s browser won’t be for humans at all. An AI browser for people is a horse pulling a train—pointless retrofit.

Want to steal the entrance? Copy China’s homework

Silicon Valley needs a field trip to see how China really fights for entry points.

Here, losing the gateway means commercial death—Alibaba and Tencent can’t afford to slip. OpenAI loses a browser? It still cashes enterprise API checks.

ByteDance wants Doubao to become “AI Douyin,” leveraging human obsession to rocket DAU and dwell time. But it’s still just an app, not an ecosystem.

Tencent is the slacker king. With WeChat in pocket, it can afford to wait. It tried turning Yuanbao into a WeChat contact—an idea that once felt seismic. Six months later: crickets. Allen Zhang clearly hasn’t cracked how to let AI “wake” users without violating WeChat’s prime directive. So Tencent watches from two beats behind.

Alibaba is the ruthless one. Mocked for weak consumer DNA, its weapon today is Quark. Internal data: Quark PC DAU jumped 10× in a year after adding AI search—driven largely by Gen-Z.

Quark PC browser DAU 10× in a year—how?

Because, like Google, Quark owns the full stack.

At first glance it’s 360 or Hao123 redux: AI novels, Quark Drive, ID-photo tools, homework graders—each a killer app you actually need.

Laugh all you want; that’s the scary part. OpenAI and ByteDance, stuck in “app-factory” mode, churn out experiments hoping one sticks. Quark just AI-reinvents the must-haves you already use.

Core thesis: models set the floor, ecosystems set the ceiling.

Quark has ecosystem. Quark Drive holds every random file you’ve hoarded. Now natural-language search reaches inside it. Google wouldn’t dare; Quark does.

Its “pro search” even beats Gemini—because no ad conflicts. It summarizes paywalled CNKI journals and sells you the full text in one click.

Weaklings fight for the doorway; titans own the whole building

So glance back: OpenAI and ByteDance are app factories praying for a hit. Without an OS or must-have stack, they remain third-tier. WeChat can’t be deleted, Taobao can’t be deleted—delete Douyin and life improves.

Sure, AI may dissolve apps entirely. Future interaction could feel like five-star concierge service: AI handles everything, you just pay and enjoy. My money says a Chinese company gets there first.

Silicon Valley study tour, anyone?

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