Google turns Chrome into a native AI browser with Gemini-powered tools

Google has rolled out the most significant upgrade in Chrome’s history; it is embedding some advanced AI-based features directly into the web browser. These upgrades include AI Mode accessible from the address bar (or what Google calls the omnibox), multi-tab analysis (compares and summarizes content), Tab History Recall, and deeper integration with Google’s apps like Calendar, Maps, and YouTube.

Additional features include an agentic browsing assistant, contextual page questions, enhanced scam detection, smart notification filtering, and one-click password changes. Furthermore, Chrome’s AI tools are now being marketed as native browser features, suggesting they may become an integral part of the browsing experience rather than just extensions.

This includes the ability to ask complex questions in the address bar, receive AI overviews or summaries in the side panels, and consolidate information across open tabs. All these features, including the new ones, are powered by Google’s Gemini AI models. These features were announced in September, but they’re rollling out now.

With the new features, you should be able to combine and analyze information on multiple tabs seamlessly, ask follow-up questions, ask Google’s AI to fetch data from your Calendar (could be the schedule for a meeting) or Maps (the distance between your house and the destination you’re searching for), and detect scams and malicious content on the go.

This marks a fundamental shift in how Chrome works, moving from a native browser that also provided active AI-based tools to one that offers them front, right, and center. Integration of AI features into Chrome makes the browser capable of understanding, summarizing, and acting on information for the user.

This also helps Google place the browser as a direct alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet. With the new AI features on Chrome, you’ll spend less time toggling between tabs to find answers or organizing information. While the new AI-based tools are available to Chrome users in the United States, Google plans to expand geographic and language support in the near future.