You have fourteen tabs open, three of them sofas, and you have long since forgotten which one had the reasonable return policy. OpenAI's answer is to let ChatGPT look at them for you. The company has updated its ChatGPT extension for Google Chrome so the assistant can read the tabs you already have open, and in one mode, act on them.
The timing is a little wry. According to one report, OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas browser is gone. So the company that once wanted to be your browser has settled for being a very attentive guest in someone else's.
What changed
The update has three parts, and they are easier to understand separately.
- Tab awareness. With the extension installed, you tag Chrome inside ChatGPT's web or desktop app, and ChatGPT can then view your open tabs.
- A fuller sidebar. ChatGPT in the Chrome sidebar now carries what OpenAI calls the full power of ChatGPT, plus your entire conversation history, in both Chat and Work modes. You no longer have to leave the page you are reading.
- Tab control in Work. ChatGPT Work can now operate your Chrome tabs for tasks such as sending messages, filling out forms or downloading files. It can also group and organize the tabs you have open.
One of the reports compares the control feature to Google's Gemini-powered "auto browse". Neither report gives a feature-by-feature comparison, so treat that as a family resemblance and not a verdict.
How you actually use it
The setup is simple. Install the extension, then talk to ChatGPT in the web or desktop app and mention Chrome. OpenAI's demo video shows someone asking ChatGPT to compare the three tabs they have open against the sofas they are considering.
The sample prompts OpenAI listed give a better sense of the intended use:
- Use the details in an event brief to fill out a registration form, and stop before submitting.
- Move the vendors in several tabs into a comparison sheet, with pricing, key features and source links.
- Compare the contractor services across all open tabs, then draft an email to the one that best fits a home renovation.
- Fill out the form open in Chrome ahead of a new dentist appointment, and add the appointment to both work and personal calendars.
The pattern is clear. These are multi-step chores that normally mean copying text from one page, pasting it into another and hoping you did not misread a decimal point. One report describes the goal as handling multi-step tasks directly inside Chrome.
The part where it stops and asks
The most telling detail in the examples is the one about not submitting. OpenAI's sample prompt says to fill out the registration form and stop before submitting. The other report likewise says you can ask ChatGPT to prepare data or complete a form without sending it until you confirm.
That is sensible. An assistant that can fill out a form and click send on your behalf is useful right up to the moment it is confidently wrong. Keeping a human hand on the final button is the oldest safety feature in software, and it still works.
The reports do not say how this confirmation is enforced, whether it is a default or something you must request in each prompt, or how the extension handles sensitive pages. Those are the questions worth asking before you point it at a banking tab.
What the reports don't say
Both accounts are brief. Neither says which subscription tiers get the update, whether it is rolling out gradually, or what permissions the extension asks for. Neither offers performance figures or reliability data, so how often it fills in the wrong field is unknown.
What can be said is narrower. The extension can now see your tabs when you tag Chrome, the sidebar carries your history and both modes, and Work can click through tasks for you. If it behaves as the demo suggests, the sofa comparison gets a lot shorter. Whether your sofa decision does is another matter.
The takeaway
Browsers have spent years collecting our tabs, and we have spent years not closing them. Handing the pile to an assistant is a very human solution to a very human habit. Just keep the submit button for yourself.