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Dia 101: Getting Started (The Browser Built for How You Actually Work)

How to set up Dia, the AI browser: separate setups per client, a daily briefing, and tabs where your brain wants them. A working review and starter.

The browser is the tool everyone uses all day and nobody ever thinks about. I thought about it once, switched to Dia, and my client work got noticeably cleaner overnight. Here's what it is, the setup that makes it earn its place, and who should bother switching.

What Dia is

Dia is a browser with AI built in, made by the same team behind the Arc browser. You browse in it like any browser, and it adds a layer the others don't have: an assistant that can see what you're looking at, plus opinionated design choices that turn out to matter more than the AI. It's fast, and it's genuinely pleasant, and in a tool you live in eight hours a day, pleasant compounds.

Why it won my dock: a setup per client

The feature that sold me has nothing to do with AI. I have a different setup for each of my clients, which keeps their logins separate and unique.

If you manage anything on behalf of clients (their social accounts, their email tools, their platforms), you know the specific dread of being logged into the wrong account. Post to the wrong Instagram once and you never fully relax again. Separate setups per client mean each client's world stays its own: their logins, their tabs, their context. Switching clients is switching worlds, cleanly.

Even if you're not agency-side, the same move separates work and personal, or business one and business two.

The other two reasons

The daily briefing. Dia has a daily briefing feature I really like: a morning rundown built from your context. I already build my own daily brief (the meeting-briefing guide covers that), so this one is a redundancy. But I like to test everything against everything, and a redundancy I enjoy is still a win. If you don't want to build your own briefing automation yet, this is a zero-effort starting point.

Tabs on the left. Dia puts your tabs in a sidebar instead of across the top. It sounds cosmetic. It isn't. Vertical tabs stay readable at twenty tabs deep, where top tabs shrink into unclickable slivers. My brain works so much better with tabs on the left, and if yours does too, this alone justifies the switch.

Setup (20 minutes)

  1. Download Dia at diabrowser.com and import from your current browser when it offers (bookmarks, passwords, extensions). The import is what makes switching painless; don't skip it.
  2. Create your separate setups. One per client, or at minimum work vs. personal. Log into each client's accounts inside their own setup, once, and never think about it again.
  3. Meet the assistant. Open a long article or a dense doc and ask the built-in AI to summarize it or answer questions about it. That "chat with what I'm reading" move is the habit that sticks.
  4. Check out the daily briefing and decide if it's useful to you.
  5. Give the sidebar tabs three days. Layout changes feel wrong for exactly three days. Then the old way feels broken.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Switching without importing. Rebuilding passwords and bookmarks by hand is why people give up on new browsers in an afternoon.
  • One giant setup anyway. If everything still lives in one profile, you've changed logos, not workflows. The setups-per-client move is the point.
  • Expecting the browser AI to replace your real stack. The built-in assistant is great for on-page questions and quick summaries. Your business brain, your rules, and your automations still live in your main AI setup.

FAQ

What is Dia? An AI-enabled browser from the Browser Company (the team behind Arc): a fast browser with an assistant that can see what you're browsing, sidebar tabs, and clean profile separation.

Is Dia better than Chrome? For my work, yes: separate setups per client, tabs on the left, and a built-in assistant. If you never juggle multiple accounts and love your current setup, the case is thinner.

Does Dia replace ChatGPT or Claude? No. The browser AI is for what's on your screen right now. Your writing, operations, and connected-data work stay in your main tools.

Is Dia free? Check diabrowser.com for current status; browser pricing models shift. The switch cost is time, not money, and the import makes it about 20 minutes.