ChatGPT Can Now "See" Your Open Chrome Tabs

OpenAI continues to invest in integrating ChatGPT with the Chrome browser, even as the company's more ambitious project—a dedicated ChatGPT browser called Atlas—has been shelved. According to The Verge, the company has now rolled out an update to its ChatGPT extension for Chrome that lets the AI assistant interact directly with the tabs a user has open.

How the new feature works

In practice, users who have the extension installed can tag Chrome within the ChatGPT interface—whether through the web app or the desktop app—and the assistant will be able to "look at" the content of active tabs. This capability opens up a range of practical scenarios, from comparing information across multiple sources open at the same time to quickly summarizing content without the user having to manually copy text from each page.

To showcase the new feature, OpenAI released a video in which a user asks ChatGPT to compare three open tabs in the browser. The assistant manages to identify the differences and similarities between the content of the pages, providing a structured summary with no further input needed from the user.

Dropping Atlas: a step back or a strategic pivot?

The news comes after OpenAI decided to shut down the ChatGPT Atlas project, its standalone browser that integrated the AI assistant directly into the browsing experience. Although the initiative had seemed like a logical step in expanding the ChatGPT ecosystem, the company appears to have chosen a different path: rather than building an entirely new browser, it is focusing its resources on improving extensions compatible with already popular browsers like Chrome.

This strategy has the advantage of not forcing users to switch browsers in order to benefit from AI features, thereby lowering the barrier to adoption. At the same time, it gives OpenAI access to Chrome's enormous user base without the cost and complexity of developing an entirely new product.

Privacy implications

ChatGPT's ability to access the content of open tabs also raises questions about privacy and data security. For now, OpenAI has not provided extensive details on how the information viewed by the assistant is handled, or what control options users have over this feature. Such clarifications are expected to emerge as the functionality becomes more widely available.