Aussie tech giant Atlassian’s $1b AI buy
Atlassian has acquired a US browser company as the Australian tech giant aims to revolutionise how workers use AI online.
Australian tech giant Atlassian has announced the $1 billion purchase of an AI web browser company, saying it could change how we work online.
Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes said buying The Browser Company of New York presented a “bold new chapter” for the Sydney-based firm.
“Together we’re going to re-imagine the browser for knowledge workers in the AI era,” he said.
“We have the potential to change the way one billion knowledge workers use AI in their browser.”
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Buying the Browser Company, which is behind the Dia and Arc browsers, puts Atlassian in competition with traditional internet search powerhouses like Google and Apple – although it does not expect it to be used by everyone.
The $US610 million ($A936 million) purchase will lead to a browser being connected to Atlassian’s work applications, which are used by 80 per cent of Fortune 500 companies.
“Our vision is to make Dia the AI browser for work,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said in a video.
In a blog post, he explained that “today’s browsers weren’t built for work”.
“They were built for browsing – reading the news, watching videos, looking up recipes,” he wrote.
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“And sure, you may do some of those things in your browser during the workday, but most of those tabs represent a task that needs to get done.”
Atlassian’s head of product in teamwork collection Sanchan Saxena explained current browsers “treat every tab the same” with “little awareness of your work context”.
“Dia is being designed with AI at its core, so it can recognize the (software) apps you use, remember your workflows, and help you automate repetitive tasks,” he said.
“It’s about turning the browser from a passive bystander into an active partner in your workday.”
Mr Saxena said Atlassian and The Browser Company were poised “to lead in a new era of work”.
“This opens up entirely new opportunities for Atlassian to innovate at the intersection of AI, productivity, and enterprise software,” he said.
The news comes a few months after Atlassian hit headlines for slashing 150 customer service staff, including 44 in Australia, via a prerecorded video.
Those jobs were replaced by AI.
Mr Cannon-Brookes has now responded to criticism over how the redundancies were handled in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.
There has also been a string of media reports alleging low morale within the Atlassian team in recent months.
“Look, don’t believe everything you read,” he said. “In terms of morale internally, it’s pretty good.
“We do regular surveys on a quarterly basis, we track those results, we try to improve them, and we try to be honest and clear with our employees at all times about what’s going on.
“So I don’t believe we have any problems. But we’re not naive, we’re not unaware.
“We work very hard to have the culture that we have, and I think we should be very proud of that.”
Originally published as Aussie tech giant Atlassian’s $1b AI buy
