Fresh off the heels of raising $50 million at a $550 million valuation in March, The Browser Company continues to bring in more features to its Arc browser, set up to provide a genuine alternative to Chrome and other dominant players in the internet browser market. Today it is introducing a new feature called Live Folders, which will automatically create and update tabs in a folder based on events like someone adding a file to a shared folder.
Live Folders comes as the company also builds out more AI-powered features to create more dynamic and automated user experiences. One plan has been to build an AI agent that browses the web on your behalf, although this has yet to launch.
The company is launching Live Folders initially with GitHub pull request support. When a user creates a GitHub pull request, Arc automatically creates a Live Folder in the sidebar.
The folder will automatically update tabs based on pull requests you have created, assigned to, requested a review for or mentioned. The folder will automatically clear out tabs with completed requests and tasks.
If there is a new pull request when your Live Folder is collapsed, the browser will peek it out to highlight the new request to you.
Arc is aiming to build a new kind of tracking system with this feature to help users with their daily work. The company teased this feature in February. When it asked users about support for types of systems for the Live Folders feature, GitHub was the top requested service.
The company said it is focused on integrating services to Live Folders that are treated toward collaboration, such as Google Calendar, Google Drive and Figma. It added that the tech behind Live Folders is flexible, so it could also adopt things like updates from RSS feeds.
Earlier this month, the startup’s CEO, Josh Miller, announced that the company had hired former Safari designer Charlie Deets and former WhatsApp designer Christine Rode to build different interface designs.
techcrunch.com