According to AppleInsider, Apple’s lead Safari designer, Marco Triverio, has left the company to join The Browser Company, the maker of the Arc and Dia browsers. The Browser Company’s CEO, Josh Miller, announced the move on January 7, 2025, stating Triverio had “just joined” his firm. This follows the April 2024 hiring of another former Apple human interface designer, Charlie Deets, who also worked on Safari. Miller now boasts that his company has the lead designers from “every Safari era,” directly overlapping with Arc and Dia’s development. In a follow-up post, Miller explicitly stated his goal is to build the best team of AI interface and product talent, treating them like artists. This comes as rival browsers like OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas and Google Chrome are rapidly integrating AI features.
Talent war heats up
Here’s the thing: this isn’t just about one designer changing jobs. It’s a signal flare. The scramble for AI talent that defined 2025 is clearly still raging, and now it’s zeroing in on a very specific battlefield—the browser interface. Miller isn’t just hiring engineers; he’s specifically going after the elite designers who shape how users experience software. By snagging Triverio and Deets, he’s not just getting Apple alumni. He’s acquiring the institutional knowledge of how one of the world’s most polished, mass-market browsers is built. That’s a huge shortcut. And his expletive-laden declaration that “We’re not messing around this year” is a direct shot across the bow of every major player.
The AI browser battleground
So why the browser? Miller’s belief, which he’s betting his company on, is that the future of computing happens right there in that window. It sounds grandiose, but look at what’s already happening. OpenAI launched a dedicated AI browser. Google is slapping an “AI Mode” button everywhere. Even Apple, often seen as lagging, is baking text summarization and its Web Eraser into Safari. The browser is becoming the operating system for AI-assisted work and search. The company behind Arc and Dia is trying to get ahead of that curve by owning the design philosophy. They want to define what an “AI-native” interface feels like before Chrome or Safari can figure it out.
What this means for Apple and users
For Apple, this is a prickly loss. Safari is a cornerstone of their ecosystem, especially on iOS where it’s the only engine allowed. Losing a lead designer to a feisty, AI-obsessed startup hurts. It suggests that for some top creative talent, the real innovation in browsing isn’t happening in Cupertino right now—it’s happening in smaller, more aggressive shops. For users, this competition is probably a good thing in the long run. We’ll see faster experimentation with AI features, new ways to interact with the web, and hopefully, some of that innovation will pressure the giants to move quicker. But there’s a risk, too. Will this lead to a fragmented mess where every browser has its own proprietary AI agent? Probably. Buckle up.
A reunion and a challenge
The human element here is pretty fun. Charlie Deets, who moved last year, posted an “extremely excited” GIF about working with Triverio again. That kind of reunion is powerful. It creates a culture that can be a magnet for more talent. Miller’s challenge now is to actually let these “artists and craftspeople” build something revolutionary, not just incrementally better. Can they turn their deep understanding of Safari’s polish into something that genuinely rethinks the browser for the AI age? Or is this just a great PR coup? The real test will be what they ship. One thing’s for sure: the quiet world of browser design just got very, very loud.
