There’s a school of thought that says that “AI brain” is a real thing, where AI quietly removes the traditional need to think through a problem. In this context, Microsoft Edge’s AI-brain problem just got a lot worse — and it’s actively blocking your ability to get things done.
Microsoft began rolling out substantial updates to the Edge desktop and mobile browser today, and yes, they obviously prioritize Copilot. Some of these feel familiar; didn’t Google launch automated quizzes and podcasts months ago? But Copilot isn’t just being added to Edge. It’s actively taking over portions of Edge that humans used to manage themselves, specifically the nearly infinite list of sites that you’ve browsed as part of your browser history.
That’s both good and bad. Most people absolutely refuse to manually pore over the list of websites that make up a browser’s history in search of a specific site or topic, and who can blame them? Google’s Chrome browser allows you to search your browser history for a specific site or topic, which feels like a good compromise.
Microsoft has taken this a step further, and outsourced the task to Copilot. You’re not searching your browser’s history. Instead, Edge can now use the Copilot AI function to search out the sites and tabs you previously browsed, and then summarize them — all using AI, which is notorious for not linking sites.
Google Chrome’s browser history provides a timeline and a search function to find what you’re looking for. And in fact, that’s what you’re going to get. Microsoft calls this “Journeys,” and it’s designed to help you pick up where you left off. Various browser makers and search engines have wrestled with this problem: What happens when you begin researching a topic, then get called away? Most browsers share tabs between your smartphone and desktop. Alternatively, you can create tab groups and store them for a future occasion. Microsoft even solved the problem in 2019 with a feature called Collections, in which you could group and store tabs in a sidebar for later use. But oops! Microsoft indicated in January that it would kill Collections later this year, even though it currently remains part of the present browser.
(Clarification: According to a Microsoft representative, Journeys is opt-in by default, as is Microsoft’s AI summary of your browsing history.)
All of these solutions, however, aggregated the tabs themselves. Journeys doesn’t. Edge’s new tab page may suggest that you resume “recent browsing” for (as an example) cross-stitch guides. The result Microsoft shared auto-generated a Copilot prompt for “Summarize the most beginner-friendly projects offered across these pages,” then began pumping out an AI summary without any link in sight. Now I have to stop, search, and try to find what I was looking for previously. How horribly unproductive that is!
(Do you hate the term “Microslop,” Microsoft? Because this is how you get labeled that.)
To be fair, I can see some advantages in a related feature. You now have the option of adding specific tabs to a Copilot query, and the example Microsoft chose is a good one: You’ve done some of your own research, narrowed down a few choices, and want some AI input to help you make a final decision. In this case, the user is leading the discussion, and allows Copilot to provide assistance. Some might want Copilot to make all the decisions in the process, but again — AI brain. Why wouldn’t you want humans and AI working together, with humans making the final call?
What Microsoft doesn’t really tell you is that all of these new features are aligned with Edge’s new tab page, which has traditionally looked a lot like the crazy quilt of content that is Windows’ widgets, a collection of stock, news, weather, and random celebrity data. What Microsoft is trying to replace that with is a world where (a bit like Google) topics of interest are synthesized, cobbled from information pulled from a variety of sources. I’ve already caught Copilot making some dubious claims not backed up by the somewhat-dubious sources that it pulled from. (Yes, I know I can manage that information, but do I want to? It’s exhausting.)
Microsoft is very proud of the fact that these new AI announcements are accompanied by “long-term memory,” which feels like a very AI-specific term that speaks to various techniques to resurface tokens and the like. But we have a solution to this problem, and we’ve had it for years: Just write the damn URL to a file, and store it on the user’s PC.
Otherwise, Microsoft’s big Edge announcements feel very familiar, with Copilot Vision and Voice finally arriving on the mobile version of Edge. (Google Lens debuted eight years ago, Microsoft!) You now can create quizzes for students to test themselves on web pages, create podcasts, and more — again, what Google has been able to do for some time.
Google did this first. Microsoft’s cyborg-ization of Edge, where AI is taking over some of the traditional “human” parts of the browser, isn’t what makes me turn up my nose. I can appreciate AI tools that save me time and mental effort, such as the software that maps out directions for my car. But ultimately, I can create my own shortcuts from A to B. From what I can see, Microsoft’s new Edge Journeys appear to strip out all autonomy. It’s a direction that Microsoft originally promised that it would reverse course on. So why has it continued?
The broader context here is the ongoing race among browser vendors to integrate AI deeply into the user experience. Google Chrome has been slowly adding AI features like tab suggestions and history search, but it has stopped short of replacing the fundamental history interface. Apple’s Safari has introduced intelligent tab privacy and syncing, but retains manual history access. Mozilla Firefox, while not pursuing heavy AI integration, continues to offer a robust history manager with search and filtering.
Microsoft’s move is seen by many as a gamble that users will prefer convenience over control. However, critics argue that by removing explicit links and relying on AI summaries, the company is eroding the very foundation of how the web works: direct navigation. The web is built on URLs; stripping them away in favor of AI-generated abstracts diminishes the ability to verify sources, revisit exact pages, and maintain a personal record of activity.
For professionals who rely on browser history as a research tool, the change could be devastating. Journalists, researchers, and students often need to recall a specific page they visited days or weeks ago. With Journeys, they might get a vague description but no direct path to the content. The AI might summarize incorrectly or omit crucial details. In a world where misinformation spreads easily, relying on an AI that “hallucinates” facts is risky.
Moreover, the discontinuation of Collections removes a feature that many found genuinely useful. Collections allowed users to save sets of tabs with notes, which could be exported or shared. It provided a structured way to manage research. Its replacement, Journeys, offers no such structure; it’s just a chronological dump of AI summaries without user-defined organization. Even if Journeys is opt-in, the default for new users will likely be the AI-driven experience, as Microsoft has a history of pushing new features aggressively (like the Edge sidebar or the Bing AI integration).
From a technical standpoint, the implementation of long-term memory for Copilot raises privacy concerns. The AI must store and process browsing data to generate summaries. While Microsoft claims this is done locally or with encryption, the fact that AI models are trained on user data is a familiar pattern. In the past, Microsoft has faced criticism for data collection practices in Windows and Office. Users who value privacy may be wary of browsing history being processed by an AI, even if it is opt-in.
Another angle is the competitive landscape. Microsoft is trying to catch up with Google in AI features for browsers, but it is doing so by substituting rather than augmenting existing functionality. Google’s approach has been to add AI on top of existing tools (like providing AI-generated answers in search results while still offering links). Microsoft’s approach removes the links entirely. This could backfire if users feel tricked or frustrated, leading them to switch to Chrome or Firefox.
There’s also the question of performance. AI processing in the browser, especially for summarizing multiple pages, consumes CPU and memory resources. On lower-end devices, this could slow down the browsing experience. Edge is known for being more resource-intensive than its competitors; adding AI summarization could exacerbate that.
Microsoft’s announcement also included Copilot Vision and Voice on mobile, which are similar to Google Lens and Assistant. These features are welcome additions for accessibility and convenience, but they don’t address the core issue of erasing manual control over history. In fact, the Vision feature might further encourage users to rely on AI for visual content recognition, again reducing the need to remember specific pages.
Ultimately, the trend toward AI-driven interfaces is here to stay. But the debate centers on the balance between automation and user agency. By removing direct links from history, Microsoft is taking away one of the last bastions of individual control in the browsing experience. It remains to be seen whether users will accept this trade-off or whether they will revolt and seek alternatives. For now, the update forces a choice: embrace the convenience of AI summaries or fight for the freedom to navigate the web on your own terms.
Source: PCWorld News