When a New Browser Launches: What I'm Seeing in Google Analytics for ChatGPT’s Atlas

Some folks on the Kick Point team installed Atlas on October 22nd to test its tracking behavior. Since I am a committed Windows user, I can’t use Atlas just yet but I’ll install it as soon as it’s available for Windows.

The first thing I checked was the user agent string—that’s the technical code that tells websites what browser you’re using. Here’s what I found: Atlas shows up as Chrome. Not “kind of like Chrome”—exactly like Chrome. The user agent string is identical to what you’d see from someone browsing on a Mac using Chrome.

This makes sense because Atlas is built on Chromium, which is the same rendering engine Chrome uses. But here’s where it gets interesting for your Google Analytics tracking.

Let’s walk through what happens when someone imports their Chrome data into Atlas. You’d expect cookies to come along with bookmarks and history, right? Some of them might, but Google Analytics cookies definitely did not.

When we tested importing Chrome data into Atlas, we found that GA4 cookies—the ones that tell Google Analytics “this person has been here before”—didn’t transfer. There isn’t specific documentation about this from ChatGPT, but it’s likely related to security and privacy reasons, and ChatGPT doesn’t promise to transfer over cookies, just bookmarks, saved passwords, and browsing history.

Here’s why this matters for your Google Analytics data: without those cookies, Google Analytics will treat you as a brand new visitor when you use Atlas for the first time even if you’ve been coming to a site for years in Chrome.

This isn’t a bug in Atlas or a limitation of GA4. This is privacy-preserving behavior working exactly as designed. But it creates an interesting measurement challenge.

Think of how you use the internet. Do you only use one device and one browser? Probably not. When your audience tries Atlas (or any new browser), they’ll show up as “new users” in your Google Analytics reports, even though they’re actually returning visitors who just switched browsers.

The only way around this would be if someone logs into your website and you’re reporting that to GA4, but not every site has logins and even if they do, they may not be reporting that information to Google Analytics.

What This Means for Your Metrics

In my experience, this affects specific metrics in GA4:

• New Users will increase (people trying Atlas for the first time)
• Returning Users may decrease temporarily (as they switch browsers)
• User Lifetime calculations might shift (since GA4 sees browser switches as new users)

Your circumstances might be different. At Analytics Playbook, I target marketers and marketers love trying shiny new things, so I expect to see Atlas adoption show up in our data. If you serve tech early adopters—developers, marketers, AI enthusiasts—you might see this pattern too.

If you serve general consumers or traditional B2B audiences, Atlas impact will be minimal for now. We’ll have to see if Atlas catches on or not to see if it’s something we’ll need to keep an eye on in the future.

If you want to understand whether your audience is adopting Atlas, here’s what I’m monitoring in my own and client GA4 data.

The Browser Dimension (Where Atlas Might—or Might Not—Show Up)

Let’s look at where you’d find browser information in GA4. Navigate to Reports > Tech > Tech Details > Browser.

As of the last time I updated this post: Atlas will appear as “Chrome” in this dimension, not as a separate browser. The browser version for Atlas is 141.0.7390.108, but again this can change regularly. I would rather see Atlas appear as a separate browser, and perhaps that will happen in time.

I’ll be sure to update this post if Atlas appears as anything other than Chrome in the future.

Tracking New User Spikes

I’m watching my New User metrics to see if a pattern emerges. Here’s where you can find this: Reports > Acquisition > User Acquisition or Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition.

If you see an unexpected bump in new users over the next few weeks without a corresponding increase in total traffic, Atlas adoption might be the explanation—especially if your audience includes tech early adopters or marketers.

Documenting What You Find (For Your Future Self)

Something I often do when major browser launches happen is add an annotation in GA4. It takes 30 seconds and saves me from confused looks when someone asks “why did new users spike in Q4 2025?” next year.

If you haven’t used annotations yet in GA4, please review my complete guide to annotations in Google Analytics.

Building a culture of documentation like this is more valuable than any single annotation. It helps your team understand data patterns instead of panicking about anomalies.

Let’s step back and think about the bigger pattern here. This isn’t the last new browser we’ll see.

At some point you’ll have a situation where your boss asks “why are we suddenly getting so many new visitors?” and you’ll need to explain it’s not growth, it’s Atlas (or whatever the next browser is).

Here’s an approach that’s worked well for me: proactive communication beats reactive explanation. If you know your audience skews toward early adopters, consider briefing stakeholders before they ask questions. You can say that you don’t know if it’ll have any impact at all, but then they know that you’re on it and paying attention. This is a great way to build trust with clients or stakeholders.

You now know what to watch for if Atlas adoption grows in your audience. Keep an eye on those New User metrics over the next few weeks if you’re curious, but remember, a small bump doesn’t mean something’s wrong with your Google Analytics data quality. It just means your users are trying something new.

You might not see anything at first. Browser adoption patterns can take weeks to months to fully materialize. Don’t feel like you have to monitor this daily—checking in weekly or monthly is perfectly reasonable for most organizations.

And remember: This exact pattern will repeat with the next browser launch, and the one after that. Understanding how browser switching affects your GA4 tracking and reporting helps you interpret data changes confidently rather than scrambling to explain what happened.