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 goal here is to build technology that helps people live more freely and confidently online. We’re listening, we’re learning and we’re focused on creating a smarter, safer digital world for everyone. This is just the beginning — not only of a new product, but a new category. Here’s what you can expect with Norton Neo in the future.”

? Neo in early access

During this initial early access phase–Norton/Gen emailed me the other day to give me access, and you can join the waitlist now if you’re interested, too–Neo will likely change quite a bit based on feedback. But looking at it now, I see something incomplete, an interesting mix of new ideas, familiar AI browser functionality, and, curiously, a lack of visual polish.

Off to a bad start

As a Chromium-based web browser, Neo is immediately familiar in some ways, though Gen/Norton customized the first-run experience a bit, and the browser itself is, lacking a better term, somewhat visually unique. More on that in a moment.

I didn’t import any browser settings when prompted, but I did make a few quick changes after the initial setup by signing in–a Google account is the only choice–and configuring it to use the system theme. I also installed a few extensions, most notably Proton Pass and Instapaper. And then I visited the Cover Your Tracks website to see how well (or if) this browser protected me and my privacy.

It does not: Cover Your Tracks reported that I was not protected against tracking on the web, which is completely unacceptable. So much for a web browser I can trust: I went back to the Chrome Web Store and installed Privacy Badger and Adblock Plus, as I usually do. (And checked Cover Your Tracks again, of course, to make sure the browser was in a good place.)

? The basics

The browser itself is curious looking and maybe a bit too busy.

The tab row at the top of the app window uses a color-coded automatic tab grouping feature called Smart tab grouping, which I don’t like, but you can toggle it on/off easily enough. It has the basic browser controls like Back, Forward, and Refresh buttons, an Address bar, optionally pinned extensions, profiles, and a main menu button. (The resulting menu and the browser’s settings interface are among those bits that will be familiar to users of Chrome and other Chromium-based web browsers.)

But there’s also an empty sidebar visible on the right, which takes up space but also provides access to the browser’s Neo Chat interface. This appears in a docked or non-docked panel that sits to the left of the sidebar and lets you interact with the webpage you’re currently viewing, as with other browsers.

? New Tab

The default New Tab page is called Magic Page. And it adds a bit more UI complexity, including a floating Workspace pane with History, Chats, and Gallery that can be expanded, Weather and Time/Date widgets, and a Neo chat interface called Magic Box.

? Magic Box

As with Copilot Mode in Microsoft Edge, the chat box (Magic Box) is selected by default when you open a new tab, so anything you type will go there and not the Address bar. Unlike with Copilot Mode, however, you can’t type Ctrl + L to get to the Address bar: Everything you type here will go through Neo first. (As with Comet, you can select your search engine from the on-the-fly results as you type to skip any AI interactions.)

Magic Box acts as a combination AI chatbot and browser address bar, and it intelligently chooses what to do when you type there. For example, when I typed a standard Google Search-type query, copilot mode site:thurrott.com, it correctly funneled that request through Google Search and not its built-in AI. But when I typed sonos era 100 price comparison it worked in place to bring up some AI-powered results. Which are not well formatted for now.

I do like the options here: Neo can read the results aloud (and at different speeds), regenerate its response, or launch a search instead, among other things.

? Peek

Because that first response was shorter than expected, I tried something different and asked Neo, what’s the best smart speaker to buy that costs under $200 and can be stereo paired? The answer to this query was also brief but came in the form of a nicely-formatted list, and there were “Top Sources” thumbnails at the bottom.

This gave me an opportunity to test Neo’s Peek feature: Those thumbnails have a little “Peek” icon overlay (an eyeball?️) that opens the underlying link in-place and in a manner that will be familiar to Arc browser users. This lets you look at a source without first Ctrl-clicking it, and if you want, you can then click an “Expand” button to open this page in a new tab. I was a fan of this kind of thing in Arc, and I like it here as well.

?️ Generative AI

Because Norton/Gen specifically calls out the browser’s generative AI capabilities, I tried a few simple prompts to see where that functionality is at.

I started with, Can you create an image of a unicorn flying through space, leaving behind a trail of sparkles. This resulted in a single, familiar-looking image, rather than the three or four images I’m used to with Microsoft Designer.

So I tried, can you remake this in a 16:9 aspect ratio? as a follow-up. The thumbnail it finally displayed was a completely different (and more colorful) image, and it wasn’t 16:9. So I tried downloading it, and … nope. The download is an image that includes the text from the answer it made. What.

I moved from there to another common (for me) test prompt: can you give me a five day itinerary for Mexico City? The result was again familiar, if bland and vague in places. (“Enjoy dinner at a traditional Mexican restaurant.” Seriously?)

⁉️ What the heck am I looking at?

None of this is particularly inspiring, of course, and the UI strangeness is a bit off-putting. But it’s early days, and Neo’s early access status obviates most of the obvious complaints for now. Plus, there’s also more going on here, or at least there will be: Neo promises to work agentically and proactively, as a personal assistant, and the company specifically calls out tasks like canceling a reservation, follow-up on an email, and filling out a form. I don’t see any evidence of this functionality now, but I just got started with Neo.

There’s a Neo FAQ that answers some of my big questions. For example, it will remain free, though Norton plans some optional premium features later that will almost certainly be paid. The browser will not “inject ads or sell your browsing data,” and nothing you type is used to train any AI models. But what AI model(s) is this using? The FAQ seems to suggest that it’s using third-party models now but may add (or switch to?) internal models in the future. It’s not clear.

? What’s next?

Neo is available for Windows (x64 only) and Mac (Apple Silicon and x64), and a version for iPhone/iPad is coming soon. I will keep an eye on this and see how it evolves, plus how it may change or surface AI-based functionality as time goes on.

For now, this isn’t terribly impressive, but it does help to clarify the functional baselines for these new AI-powered browsers. Chat integration with a voice option for more natural and hands-free interactions. Generative AI on demand, the ability to interact with specific web pages, and agentic control of online services for handing off complex tasks. Plus all the normal browser functionality that users have come to expect.