A MakeUseOf writer who spent years using Safari on a MacBook Air has made a permanent switch to Microsoft Edge—and it’s not about speed, bookmarks, or battery drain. The reason, detailed in a personal account published July 22, 2026, is the browser’s deep integration of Copilot AI. Within a week, the writer found themselves relying on Edge’s ability to summarize pages without leaving the tab, automatically group related browsing sessions, and pull in data from Google Calendar and Gmail. But for everyday Mac users, the story raises a pressing question: Are these features genuinely useful enough to abandon Safari, and what privacy strings are attached?

We dug into the details to separate the practical workflow gains from the marketing claims—and to help you decide whether to take Edge for a spin on your Mac, and how to lock down its AI settings if you do.

What Edge’s AI Features Actually Do

Edge isn’t just another Chromium browser with a blue icon. On macOS, it brings four distinct AI capabilities that can reshape how you research, organize, and get things done online.

The Copilot Sidebar: Your Always‑On Research Partner

The centerpiece is the Copilot button in the toolbar. Click it, and a chat panel slides out alongside your current tab. This isn’t just a window into Bing’s chatbot; it knows what you’re looking at. With your permission, Copilot can read the page title, URL, text content, and even your other open tabs and browsing history to give contextual answers. That means you can ask “summarize this article” or “compare what this tab says with the other one about battery life” without copying and pasting anything.

Crucially, this is permission‑based. The first time you ask a question that involves page context, Edge will ask for consent (exactly what you see depends on your region). You can later revoke that permission by turning off Context Clues in the sidebar’s privacy settings. With Context Clues off, Copilot still works, but it won’t peek at your current page or tabs to inform its answers—it becomes a standalone AI chat similar to what you’d get on Copilot.com.

Journeys: Auto‑Grouped Browsing, but Not a Bookmark Folder

The most misunderstood feature is Journeys. It’s disabled by default and must be turned on manually at Settings > Copilot and AI > Copilot in Edge > Journeys. Once enabled, it quietly watches the sites you visit, how long you stay, and the sequence of pages you open during a task. After detecting a coherent research session—say, planning a trip or shopping for a laptop—it surfaces up to three “Journey” cards on your new‑tab page. Click a card, and Copilot opens a chat that can summarize the pages you visited, offer comparisons, or help you pick up where you left off.

But Journeys does not function like a saved tab group, bookmarks folder, or startup page. You can’t manually curate a Journey or guarantee it will reappear tomorrow. It’s an AI‑generated suggestion based on your past activity, and the underlying data is automatically deleted after 14 days. InPrivate and Guest browsing are excluded, and Microsoft says it filters out sensitive sites and personal information. Even so, the feature requires ongoing analysis of your browsing patterns, which is a significant privacy consideration.

Connectors: Your Google Apps, Without Leaving Copilot

The MakeUseOf writer called out Connectors as a standout. After linking Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, and OneDrive to their Microsoft account, they could ask Copilot things like “What do I have scheduled this afternoon?” or “Find the email about the hotel reservation.” Copilot would pull the answer from those services and present it in the chat. This eliminates the hassle of tab‑switching to check multiple inboxes and calendars.

However, there’s a nuance that the personal account glosses over: Consumer Connectors are not exclusive to Edge. Microsoft currently documents them as available on Copilot.com and the Copilot mobile apps as well. So you can still connect Gmail and Google Calendar to Copilot even if you stick with Safari as your main browser. What Edge offers is convenience—the same sidebar interface where you’re already asking page‑related questions can also surface your schedule and documents, creating a unified hub. For OneDrive and Outlook.com, the Microsoft account you use in Copilot must match the owner of the data.

Browse with Copilot: An AI That Clicks for You (Caution Required)

The newest and most ambitious feature, Browse with Copilot, was rolling out on July 22, 2026, to Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers in the United States, with other markets to follow. It’s an agentic browser: you give Copilot a task (“Find the best flight to Chicago under $300”) and it actively navigates websites, scrolling, clicking, and filling forms while you watch. Microsoft warns flatly that this is not an unsupervised automation tool—it can misinterpret instructions, encounter prompt‑injection attacks on websites, or make errors that lead to an unwanted purchase or transaction.

The company says you should avoid using it for banking, trading, government IDs, medical records, or any highly confidential work. The reason? Copilot can access cookies in your current Edge profile, so it may inherit existing logins on the sites it visits. It cannot read saved passwords, autofill data, or wallet details, and it will pause for sensitive actions like completing a purchase or sending an email. It also captures screenshots of the pages it interacts with; those images stay with your conversation history for up to 30 days unless you manually delete the conversation.

What This Means for Mac Users

For anyone who currently keeps a separate AI app—ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot—open next to Safari, Edge’s sidebar can feel like a revelation. You no longer need to copy text, switch windows, and re‑prompt; the AI is embedded one click away and understands the page you’re on. The connector feature, while not Edge‑exclusive, gains a natural home in the sidebar where you’re already managing tasks.

But Apple loyalists should recognize the trade‑offs. Safari’s tight integration with iCloud Keychain, Handoff, Apple Pay, and privacy‑first Intelligent Tracking Prevention is absent in Edge. Your passwords, history, and form data won’t sync with your iPhone or iPad unless you also install Edge there and sign in. And by using Edge, you’re feeding your browsing behavior to Microsoft, not Apple. If you enable Journeys, that becomes an explicit, always‑on analysis of every site you visit outside of private mode. Even without Journeys, Copilot’s context‑aware answers rely on sharing page information with Microsoft’s servers.

The bottom line: Edge’s AI may dramatically speed up research and daily planning for power users who live in the browser, but it asks for more data in return. Casual users who just want a fast, private browser for occasional shopping and reading may find Safari’s simpler experience still fits better.

How We Got Here

Microsoft has been layering AI onto Edge since early 2023, when it added Bing Chat (now Copilot) to the sidebar. Since then, the company has steadily deepened the integration, even as Apple took a more cautious approach with Safari. At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced writing tools and a redesigned Siri, but the on‑device “Apple Intelligence” features that understand web pages currently rely on Siri’s limited ability to summarize selected text—far from Edge’s whole‑page comprehension.

The July 2026 MakeUseOf account marks a symbolic moment: a self‑described “creature of habit” who defaulted to Safari on a MacBook Air found Edge’s AI convincing enough to switch. That narrative aligns with Microsoft’s bet that AI is the new battleground for browser choice, not speed benchmarks or design tweaks. The features described are already available in stable Edge on macOS, with Browse with Copilot in a paid preview and Journeys still optional.

What to Do Now: A Practical Setup Guide

If you’re curious, you can test Edge’s AI features on your Mac without fully committing. Here’s a step‑by‑step approach that lets you evaluate the benefits while keeping privacy in check.

  1. Download Edge from microsoft.com and install it. When prompted, consider signing in with your Microsoft account to enable syncing of favorites and settings, but do not import history or passwords from Safari unless you need them. This limits the initial data Edge can see.

  2. Start with Copilot sidebar only. Skip Journeys and connectors for now. Click the Copilot icon and try a page‑related query. Edge will request permission the first time. Note that with Context Clues enabled, Copilot can read the page you’re on; if that makes you uncomfortable, open the sidebar’s settings (the three‑dot menu inside the Copilot pane > Privacy) and turn Context Clues off.

  3. If you want to try Journeys, enable it at Settings > Copilot and AI > Copilot in Edge > Journeys. Be aware that from this moment, Edge will start analyzing your browsing patterns. Check the new‑tab page over the next few days. If you don’t like it, return to the same settings switch and turn Journeys off—that immediately stops data collection and deletes any stored Journey data.

  4. Connectors are independent. You can connect Gmail, Google Calendar, and other services through Copilot.com or the Copilot mobile app without switching browsers. But if you want them inside Edge’s sidebar, sign into Copilot within Edge and look for the Connectors option in the Copilot settings. Authorize each service explicitly. Remember, for Microsoft services like OneDrive, the Microsoft account must match the one you used to sign into Copilot.

  5. Browse with Copilot is currently for Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers in the US. If that’s you, it can be found under the Copilot toolbar button as an option. Treat it as an assistant that needs supervision: never use it for banking, medical, or high‑security logins, and be prepared to intervene if it misinterprets a command. To clear its history, delete the conversation from the Copilot history panel to remove stored screenshots and interactions.

  6. Privacy‑conscious users can keep Edge in a restricted mode: use InPrivate windows for sensitive browsing (those are excluded from Journeys and, Microsoft says, from context gathering), turn off Context Clues, and disable Journeys. This strips away most of the AI convenience but leaves you with a standard Chromium browser that can be handy for specific sites or work profiles.

Outlook

Microsoft’s trajectory is clear: it wants Copilot to be the reason you choose Edge, on any platform. Expect Journeys to become smarter over time, connectors to deepen, and Browse with Copilot to eventually reach all users—albeit with the same safety warnings. Apple will inevitably respond with more AI in Safari, but for now, Edge holds a distinct edge for those who rely on AI‑assisted browsing.

The choice isn’t all‑or‑nothing. With careful settings, you can enjoy a piece of that AI productivity boost while keeping Safari as your default for most personal browsing. The MakeUseOf writer’s switch may be the canary in the coal mine: when AI becomes a central part of how we browse, the browser itself becomes a less important decision than the intelligence inside it.