Dia’s AI browser starts adding Arc’s ‘greatest hits’ to its feature set

The AI ​​web browser Dia takes inspiration from its predecessor, Bowan earlier experiment in modernizing the web browsing experience that came from the startup known as The Browser Company. On Sunday, the founder of The Browser Company said, Josh Miller, confirmed that the new AI browser will bring “Arc’s greatest hits” to Dia, including things like sidebar mode, and combine that with AI-native features like memory and agents.

This statement suggests that Dia, which has since been acquired by Atlassian for $610 million, could have an advantage in the AI ​​browser race as it builds on the company’s previous learnings in developing Arc.

The latter was initially released in mid-2023 as a browser reinvention designed around the way people use the internet today. That included offering separate workspaces for work and personal browsing, support for pinned tabs, a command bar that worked like Apple’s Spotlight search, and a sidebar with the search bar, tab list, user bookmarks, audio controls, and more.

However, Arc may have tried to push the boundaries a little too far: Miller later admitted that Arc was ultimately too complex for most people to adopt.

“Arc was simply too different, with too many new things to learn, for too little reward… Moreover, Arc lacked coherence in both its core features and its core values. It was experimental – that was part of its charm – but so was its complexity,” Miller wrote in a blog post earlier this year, detailing the company’s decision to phase out Arc and make it open source, and refocus the company’s efforts on building Dia.

But Arc isn’t necessarily a failure, even if it didn’t become a widely accepted consumer product. Instead, the browser gave the company more than a year of insight into which modern browser features are resonating with users and which are not.

That could help the company move forward as it builds out the feature set for Dia.

As Miller says in a message on X“Dia’s architecture is much better in terms of AI, speed and security,” but it will introduce features that Arc fans have loved, like sidebar mode – which was just spotted in the latest “early birds” release of Dia’s AI browser.

Dia has already added other features to Arc’s “greatest hits,“Like Google Meet automatically turning into a picture-in-picture player when you switch between tabs and custom keyboard shortcuts. Miller hinted that the company is exploring how Arc’s Spaces – the different browser areas with their own set of pinned tabs, favorites, themes, history and cookies – can be ported to Dia. And he said that’s Dia’s team currently testing pinned tabs.

Miller additionally asked for feedback on other features he could add, such as swipeable profiles And Arc Search-inspired updates to the Dia mobile app coming in 2026.

Additionally, Miller notes, Dia will be less bloated and AI-native for things like memory and agents.

After the acquisition by Atlassian, The Browser Company will continue to operate independently. As a result, Miller said the company will be able to add more “browser basics,” referring to favorite Arc features, to the Dia browser. He also said that under new ownership, Dia is developing deeper integrations with Atlassian’s Jira and other apps, such as Linear.