Browser Use
Gives a model a browser instead of a screenshot: the page is converted to text the model can act on.
What it is
A Python library that lets a language model drive a real browser — open pages, click, fill forms, extract data. It took the opposite route to most browser agents of its generation: rather than showing the model screenshots and asking where to click, it converts the interface into structured text first. The team argues that is faster, cheaper and more reliable than pixel-based navigation.
Who built itMagnus Müller and Gregor Žunič founded the company in 2024, both formerly data science students at ETH Zurich; the record says the prototype took four days. It went through Y Combinator’s W25 batch and raised a $17M seed round led by Felicis Ventures, announced in March 2025. Both founders’ public accounts describe the text-over-vision approach the same way — as the route that makes the agent cheaper and less dependent on pixel coordinates.
Build log
3 stages- 01
Four days, then straight to Hacker News
By the team’s own account the project began as a weekend experiment to see whether an LLM could navigate the web the way a person does. A first prototype was built in four days and posted to Hacker News immediately. The repository was created on 31 October 2024, which is consistent with that timeline but does not independently prove it.
- 02
Choosing text over vision
Most browser automation at the time handed the model a screenshot and asked it to reason about pixels. Browser Use converts the page into structured text and lets the model act on that. The stated reason is determinism: no guessing at coordinates, no rendering differences, lower cost per step.
- 03
From library to company
A $17M seed round led by Felicis Ventures was announced in March 2025, with Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Nexus Ventures, SV Angel and others participating. The site now sells two things — agent workflows and browser infrastructure — alongside the open-source library.
What they would tell you
- A weekend experiment can become the reference implementation if it is published the same week.
- Choosing a less obvious technical route early is what creates the room to build a company on top of it.