Google is officially transforming the web browser from a static tool into an active personal agent with the launch of Gemini 3 and “Auto-Browse” in Chrome, and the push into a personalized AI experience.
Announced yesterday for desktop users, with the exception of Chrome for Linux, this major update integrates Google’s most advanced AI model directly into the browser to handle complex, multi-step tasks.
Google is pushing Gemini with the help of its Chrome browser
Lookout OpenAI, Gemini could get a massive user boost thanks to the integration in the world’s biggest browser.
Here is an overview of the features that Google announced:
Auto-Browse (Agentic Browsing): The flagship feature for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S. that performs multi-step “chores” on your behalf. It can research travel costs across dates, fill out complex online forms, file expense reports, or add specific items to a shopping cart based on an image.
Gemini Side Panel: A persistent area in Chrome that supports interactions with the AI without losing focus. It supports the usual AI-features, such as summarizing a page, comparing features across several tabs, or finding time in your calendar.
Integrated “Nano Banana”: The latest version of Google’s image generator is integrated into the browser. Also accessible from the side panel, you can use text prompts for creative tasks, such as turning research data into infographics or manipulating images open in the browser.
Connected Apps Integration: Deeper connectivity with the Google ecosystem, allowing Gemini to pull information from Gmail, Calendar, Maps, and Google Flights to execute workflows (e.g., finding a flight based on an event invitation in your email).
Personal Intelligence: A proactive feature that remembers context from past conversations to provide tailored answers. It learns user preferences over time to transform the browser into a “trusted partner” rather than a general-purpose tool.
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) Support: Integration with a new open standard (co-developed with brands like Shopify and Wayfair) that allows AI agents to navigate checkout processes and take commercial actions across different retail sites securely.
Enhanced Security & “Pause and Confirm”: New defenses designed for agentic AI, including a safety mechanism where Auto-Browse must pause and ask for explicit user confirmation before completing sensitive actions.
Closing Words
It is clear that Gemini will get a huge user boost from this. Even if Google limits exposure to certain regions or subscription models at first, it is clear that it will expose as many users as possible to Gemini in Chrome in the long run.
Why? Because it is giving Google an edge over the competition. Plus, when users run into usage limits, they may become paying subscribers, which seems to be on the preferred options right now to increase revenue and compensate expenses.
The benefit for users invested in Google’s ecosystem is there, especially if you connect the AI to other Google services. Whether you really want that, an all-knowing AI that may know more about your desires, life and plans than your closest friends, is up for you to decide.
I see the benefits, but also the dangers. While I do use AI tools for some tasks, such as creating a teaser image for an article here or the weekly newsletter, I do not really see a benefit in letting AI do the shopping for me, even with all safeguards in place.
It was not long ago that this was the stuff of science fiction; and it was supposed to take another hundred years or so. I can see the allure here, but am myself uninterested and turn off as much of this AI nonsense that I can. I suspect that it (AI) is not yet quite ready for the general use case that is being pushed; but I have a feeling it’s not that far off.
Do we welcome our brave new world? I am trepidatious. Consider, spell check is telling me “trepidatious” doesn’t exist. Ah well, I guess I’ll add it to the dictionary.
I tried connecting to Gemini through the tor network on my pc and exit node jumping, there are quite a few countries where it is not available.
I’ve been playing with it on my phone, I even started the free 1mo pro trial and let PI turn on. I don’t use google for much, the calender and a few docs I want to share. I don’t use the voice activation or even the assistant on the phone.
I asked it: “open the “Shopping List” doc and add “butter””. It replied that it had done it.
I checked that doc and it had not, when I asked it what the issue was it told me “I can read your docs but not open and write to them”.
I told it “You should have said you couldn’t do it instead of lying to me”. It told me I was right, apologized, said “I should not have done that” and, promised to be more precise about it’s abilites in the future.
With 1m tokens it may actually do that, at least until that info slips out of the context window, we’ll see. I could make it write something to settings, if you add “remember this” to the end of a reply and it will save it to “instructions for gemini”.
Chrome browser? /ROFLMAO Never, not even on my android phone.
“Google is officially transforming the web browser from a static tool into an active personal agent…”
And this is supposed to make me want to use it? What if I want my web browser for, umm, browsing the web, instead of for ineptly running my life and copying every detail of it to a Google server? With Google, this isn’t paranoia; they’re got a solid track record of privacy reduction.