Aside

Aside ("the most intelligent AI assistant, but it's a browser") is a Y-Combinator-backed AI browser rebuilt for humans and AI agents to do real work. Tier T3 (first-party product site; benchmark claims are self-reported). Its Browser Agent runs complex workflows across your logged-in sites without integrations — messages/replies, docs/spreadsheets, payments, internal tools, tasks like finding candidates or generating daily briefings.

Aside is the roster's sharpest instance of the agentic pole done with local-privacy + guardrails baked in — the combination the synthesis flags as the resolution to the AI-vs-privacy and autonomy-vs-trust tensions:

• Local-first / privacy — all data stays on device, nothing shared with LLM providers; post-quantum encryption, Secure Enclave; a password manager whose credentials stay hidden from the AI. It also brings your own ChatGPT/Claude subscription or API key (model-agnostic).
• Human-in-the-loop — sensitive actions require approval, the explicit reversibility checkpoint the agentic pole needs (cf. Comet's Pause).
• Benchmarked — claims #1 on three browser-agent benchmarks, "surpassing OpenAI, Anthropic, and Browser Use" — a rare (if self-reported) attempt to measure agentic-browser quality, the evidence the field otherwise lacks. macOS.

Re-checked 2026-09-03: a price list, and a launch date

Aside came out of Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch and launched around 23–24 June 2026, a three-person team in San Francisco. It now publishes three tiers — Free ($0, 500 monthly credits), Pro ($20/mo), Max ($200/mo) — with heavier research and scheduled routines behind the paid ones. Nothing above needed correcting; the page simply had no pricing, and the tier list is the fact that places it. Secondary review sites (T4), not Aside's own page.

The credit meter is the detail worth keeping. Aside is the one browser here whose free tier is metered rather than feature-limited, which is a third answer to the question Comet and Atlas answered by gating the agent: not which capabilities you get, but how much of the agent you may run.

Related

ai-browser · browser-wars-2026 · perplexity-comet · agent-guardrails · openai-atlas