Google transforms Chrome into an AI-powered workplace assistant

During its Google Cloud Next announcements on Wednesday, the company revealed plans to introduce “auto browse” agentic features for enterprise Chrome users, along with upgraded security measures.

With auto browse, Chrome users can leverage Gemini to understand the live context of their open browser tabs, and then use the AI to perform tasks such as booking travel, entering data, scheduling meetings, and other web-based activities.

Image credit: Google

Google suggests the tool could be used for tasks such as entering information into the company’s preferred CRM system based on a Google Doc, comparing vendor prices across tabs, summarizing a candidate's portfolio before an interview, extracting key data from a competitor’s product page, and more.

The company notes that its workflows will still require a "human in the loop," meaning users must manually review and confirm the AI's input before any final action is taken.

However, the goal is to accelerate these tedious tasks, freeing up people to focus on what Google calls more "strategic work."

Image credit: Google

This is the broader promise from AI advocates: that using this new technology will give you back your time. However, in practice, studies have shown that AI doesn’t reduce work—it intensifies it. How this will play out at the enterprise level as AI becomes a standard workflow component remains to be seen. Presumably, managers may expect employees to accomplish more tasks in less time.

Google says the new feature will initially be available to Workspace users in the U.S., as part of its push to integrate AI into one of the most used workplace apps—the web browser nearly everyone relies on. It can be enabled via a policy, and Google states that an organization’s prompts won’t be used to train its AI models. (A disclosure that is increasingly necessary these days, given that Meta is even using its own employees’ keystrokes to train its AI.)

Like the consumer-facing version of the feature, Workspace users will be able to save their most common workflows for later use. These "Skills," as they're called, can be accessed by typing a forward slash ("/") or by clicking the plus sign to retrieve the desired Skill.

In addition to integrating AI into Chrome, Google is highlighting its ability to detect unauthorized AI tools in the workplace through Chrome Enterprise Premium. Now, it's expanding those capabilities to help IT teams identify compromised browser extensions or other AI services—specifically "anomalous agent activity."

Google is right to position this as a security feature, but it also has another advantage. The tech giant is essentially using corporate IT to shut down other AI agents that might organically take root in the enterprise. Years ago, this is how many web services first established themselves in the workplace, during an employee-driven "Enterprise 2.0" rush to adopt new technologies like cloud storage, collaborative docs, or file sharing.

This new feature, which Google somewhat ominously calls "Shadow IT risk detection," will provide IT teams with visibility into the usage of both authorized and unauthorized generative AI and SaaS sites across their organization.

Image credit: Google

IT teams will also receive a "Gemini Summary" of the Chrome Enterprise release notes and other AI-powered suggestions. This will highlight critical changes, new policies, and upcoming deprecations, along with recommendations such as configuring new settings or reviewing managed browsers.

The company also announced an expanded partnership with Okta to secure the agentic workplace, adding features to reduce session hijacking and provide other protections. It’s also upgrading security controls for extensions and introducing Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) integration to help organizations enforce consistent security policies.