Google’s Chrome browser to offer AI image generation

Google is enhancing its Chrome browser with capabilities to modify images and a virtual assistant to assist with online tasks as part of its initiative to integrate more artificial intelligence technology into its digital services, according to the Associated Press.

The features being introduced include making Google’s AI image generator and editing tool, Nano Banana, accessible to logged-in Chrome users on desktop computers in the United States. The broader availability of Nano Banana through the leading web browser may further obscure the distinction between authentic photographs and artificially generated images.

The browser’s expansion will also provide an option for Chrome’s U.S. users to open a side panel where an AI-powered assistant can help with various tasks while the user continues other online activities.

Subscribers to Google’s AI Pro and Ultra services will additionally be able to enable an “auto browse” function that can log into websites, shop for products on command, and draft social media posts. Users will still need to manually finalize purchases from the AI-prepared shopping carts and approve the drafted social media posts.

The AI in Chrome utilizes the Gemini 3 model, which Google released late last year and is now being integrated into many services that contributed to its corporate parent, Alphabet, recently exceeding a market value of $4 trillion.

Earlier this month, Google leveraged Gemini to introduce more AI features into Gmail as part of an effort to make that service function more like a personal assistant, and then incorporated more of the technology into its search engine in hopes of delivering more relevant answers customized to users’ individual preferences and habits.

The upgrades to Google’s search engine connect to the company’s “Personal Intelligence” technology, which uses AI to learn more about people’s lives. Google has stated it will introduce a Personal Intelligence option in Chrome later this year.

Chrome’s AI enhancements are being released a few months after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s effort to compel Google to sell the browser as a penalty for maintaining an illegal monopoly in search. The judge declined the proposed divestiture partly because he believes AI is already altering the competitive landscape, as smaller competitors like OpenAI and Perplexity implement the technology in chatbots and their own web browsers.

Before launching its AI browser Atlas last October, OpenAI had expressed interest in purchasing Chrome if a breakup had been ordered. Perplexity, which offers an AI browser called Comet, submitted a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome before the judge decided against mandating a sale.