(PCMag/Michael Kan)
Google’s Gemini chatbot is heading to the Chrome browser, giving desktop users another way to access the company’s rival to ChatGPT.
“This will be your AI assistant as you browse the web on your desktop,” said Google Labs VP Josh Woodward at the company’s Google I/O developer conference.
The company plans to roll out the built-in Gemini access in Chrome this week for those with a Google AI Pro ($19.99 per month) or Google AI Ultra ($249.99/month) subscription.
Although you can already access the Google chatbot through the Gemini web domain or mobile app, the built-in Chrome access promises to unlock some new use cases. “The amazing part is that as you use this it understands the context of the page that you’re on, automatically,” Woodward said.
(Credit: PCMag/Michael Kan)As an example, Woodward showed a user searching Google for a camping site. The user then taps the star icon in the browser to access Gemini, triggering a small window on the browser to open up with direct access to Google’s chatbot. The user then asks, “which campsites have river access,” leading the Gemini chatbot to research and respond to the query.
Woodward didn’t go into more details. But it comes as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been taking traffic away from Google’s search engine. Bringing Gemini to Chrome could help Google’s chatbot gain greater exposure since Chrome has long been the most popular desktop browser. At I/O, Google said the standalone Gemini app already has over 400 million monthly active users.
For more, check out our rundown of everything Google announced at I/O day one.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.