The Browser Company’s Tara Feener is advancing search for the AI era

You might not spend a lot of time thinking about your web browser, whether it’s Safari, Chrome, or something else. But the decades-old piece of software remains a pretty important canvas for getting things done. That’s why Tara Feener, who spent years developing creative tools with companies such as Adobe, WeTransfer, and Vimeo, decided to join the Browser Company and within two years became head of engineering, overseeing its AI-forward Dia browser. “This is more ambitious than any of the other things I’ve done, because it’s where you live your life, and where you create within,” she says.

Whereas a conventional browser presents you with a search box on its home screen, Dia will either answer your query with AI or route it to a traditional search based on what you write. You can also ask for information from your open tabs or have Dia intelligently sort them into groups. Several of these features have since found their way into more mainstream browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, and in September, Atlassian announced it had acquired the Browser Company and Dia (a $610 million deal), hoping to develop the ultimate AI browser for knowledge workers.

Other AI companies are catching on to the importance of owning a browser. Perplexity has launched Comet, and OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas in October. This strategic value isn’t lost on Feener, who notes that browsers are typically the starting point for workers seeking information. They also provide a treasure trove of context for AI assistants. Dia can already do things like analyze your history for trends and draft messages in Gmail. Feener says her team has never felt more creative coming up with things to do next.

“With Dia, we have context, we have memory, we have your cookies, so we actually own the entire layer,” she says. “Just like TikTok gets better with every swipe, every time you open something in Dia, we learn something about you.”

This profile is part of Fast Company’s AI 20 for 2025, our roundup spotlighting 20 of AI’s most innovative technologists, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and creative thinkers.

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