With the launch of Chrome M121 today, Google has unveiled plans to incorporate innovative generative AI capabilities aimed at enhancing the user experience of the browser. Among the forthcoming features are a tab organizer, a writing assistant for text composition, and the ability to personalize the browser’s artwork and themes. To access these new functionalities, users will need to activate the “Experimental AI” toggle within the Settings page, conveniently located in the three-dot dropdown menu.
The Tab Organizer is designed to simplify tab management by leveraging AI to suggest categorizations for open tabs within Chrome windows, facilitating the creation of tab groups. This feature can be particularly useful for users with numerous tabs open simultaneously. By selecting ‘Organize Similar Tabs,’ the AI will group related pages together based on their content, such as clustering shopping-related tabs and proposing names like ‘Ski-trip shopping gear.’
Additionally, Chrome’s upcoming text assist tool is poised to offer practical benefits, serving as an experimental resource to aid users in drafting text, including Google reviews or social media posts. Upon its launch, users can activate the tool by choosing “Help me write,” allowing it to assist in completing sentences or proposing continuations for the text.
Customization has long been a hallmark of various Google tools like Mail and Docs, and now, Chrome web browsers are joining the fray by enabling users to personalize the browser’s visual elements—an extension of the AI wallpapers recently introduced for Pixel phones. To customize the browser, users can click on the ‘Customize Chrome’ button in the side panel and prompt the AI to generate a theme based on their preferences. By entering descriptions like ‘small beach town’ or ‘Blade Runner vibes,’ users can explore and select from the theme options generated by the AI.
The introduction of these innovative tools is set to create competition with Microsoft’s AI-driven Bing engine, which rolled out AI-powered tab grouping and text composition assistance last September. Despite this, Chrome continues to maintain a significant lead in the US browser market share, with Bing often relegated to the “others” category, trailing behind competitors like Firefox and Opera.
