What Norton Neo Says About the AI-Powered Future of Web Browsing (Premium)

Back in May, Norton announced Neo, which it describes as the world’s first safe AI-native browser. I have so many questions.
❓ What is this thing?
Neo is a Chromium-based, AI-powered web browser built by Norton, the trusted security brand. So it's perhaps most similar to Perplexity Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia in that it’s a fresh take on a web browser that’s built for this AI era. It’s available now in early access preview, in the U.S. only, for Mac and Windows.
? Norton?
Yeah, Norton.

I had to look this up: Norton was founded by Peter Norton in 1982 and acquired by Symantec in 1990, at which point that company released the Norton Antivirus software that Norton is today best known for. Symantec in 2014 split itself into two companies, much as HP did that same year, with one company called Norton focusing on security and the other, Symantec, focusing on information management. Then, Symantec spun off its enterprise division in 2019 and renamed itself to NortonLifeLock. And last year, NortonLifeLock merged with Avast and renamed itself to Gen Digital, which more commonly goes by the name Gen.

Today, Gen owns a family of brands and products that include Avast (antivirus), AVG (software protection), Avira (online security), CCleander (software optimization), LifeLock (identity theft protection), Norton (cyber safety), and others. And its latest product is Norton Neo. Which it usually calls Neo, as I will too.

In some ways, this reminds me of Alludo, which was founded in 1985 as Corel and now owns WordPerfect, Parallels, WinZIP, WinDVD, plus PaintShop Pro, AfterShot Pro, and other products and brands in addition to the core Corel graphics apps.
? Why Neo?
Gen chief AI and innovation officer Howie Xu says that he joined the company specifically to reinvent the web browser for the AI era and help guide how consumers will use generative AI. The messaging here will be familiar if you pay attention to what The Browser Company or other AI browser innovators have been saying for the past year or so: These products seek to make sense of the endless bucket of information we can access online by lowering barriers, friction, and cognitive overhead while improving clarity and the quality of the outcomes we’re trying to achieve.

Looking past the mumbo-jumbo, Neo seeks to integrate AI capabilities seamlessly within the browser via a proactive assistant that’s powered by what Gen calls “ChatGPT-level intelligence you can trust.” And this is perhaps where Neo aligns more closely with Dia–and with pther security- and privacy-focused products and services like Duck.ai/DuckDuckGo, Brave Leo/Brave, and Proton Lumo–than, say, Comet. That is, it offers AI capabilities (that the company says) you can trust. Assuming the Norton brand still carries some cachet.

“The browser, one of the most-used apps on every computer, is overdue for reinvention,” Xu wrote in the Neo announcement post, echoing the words I wrote a year and a half ago. “Our...