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Google started a new “Auto Browse” feature for Chrome on Wednesday. The tool, operated by Google is now Gemini 3 generative AI model, an AI agent designed to take over your Chrome browser to help complete online tasks like booking flights, finding apartments, and filing expenses.
The release of Auto Browse is part of Google’s continued integration of AI features into Chrome. Last year, Google drops “Gemini in Chrome” mode to answer questions about what’s on web pages and synthesize details from multiple open tabs.
Auto Browse, which users can access by launching the Gemini sidebar in Chrome, currently only available in the US at subscribers on Google’s monthly AI Pro and AI Ultra plans. It is unclear when Auto Browse will be available to non-paid users and additional countries.
Google’s rollout squares with Silicon Valley’s vision for the future of web browsing, which includes more AI and less of you. If it’s a browser designed from the ground up around generative AI, such as Atlas of OpenAIor one retrofitted with new AI-based tools, such as Google’s Chrome, almost every option available to consumers today has some level of baked-in AI. (The Vivaldi browser (a notable exception is for users who want to avoid AI-powered web browsing.)
In a prelaunch demo, Charmaine D’Silva, a director of product management for Chrome, showed me an example of Auto Browse helping her shop online. “Instead of remembering where I bought and trying to reorder something,” he says, “I can now delegate Auto Browse within Gemini to go ahead and buy jackets for me.” By typing a message into Chrome’s Gemini sidebar, D’Silva asked the bot to reorder a jacket he bought last year, and to find a discount coupon code before making the purchase.
When started, Auto Browse will take over Chrome and make ghostly clicks on its own tab as it tries to complete a given task. “Use Gemini carefully and take control as needed,” reads a disclaimer on the demo version. “You are responsible for Gemini’s actions during assignments.” Even if you send it into the digital wilderness, Google still sees you as responsible for what its bot does online while complying with your requests.
For now, automation is a long way off. Tasks that Google considers more sensitive, such as posting on social media and swiping your credit card, still requires a little user management. In these situations, the Chrome bot will set the steps necessary to reach that and ask the user if they want to continue.
Anyone interested in experimenting with Auto Browse should carefully consider the security implications of this type of automation. Despite Google’s efforts to make it safer to use, Auto Browse and similar AI-based tools are still at risk of being tricked by quick injection attack when visiting malicious websites, tricking the bot into acting in ways not intended by the user in the first place.
I’ll be taking a look at Auto Browse this week to find out its initial strengths, weaknesses, and what the tool really means for the average Chrome user. Overall, I’m skeptical about this agent AI tools designed to make your life more efficient and sweep away all your digital tasks. Bots are almost always overhyped, and I find them often unreliable. However, Google continues to align the web browsing experience around AI. Given Google’s track record for slowly pushing out new features, you should expect Auto Browse to roll out more and more in the near future.
