Chrome’s new product boss wants your browser to work alongside AI agents

It looks like Google is getting ready to go all in with AI in Chrome. Jacob Bank is (re)joining Google as VP of Product for Chrome, and going by his first public comments, his big idea is that your browser should stop being a passive window to the web and start acting more like a workspace where you and AI get things done together.

In case you weren’t following, Bank is the person who was first leading product for Gmail and Calendar. He then left Google back in 2021 to build a workflow automation startup called Relay.app, which, well, did not make it. But that now means he’s back with all his AI learnings and experience to head Google’s Chrome team.

Google, for its part, has already been leaning into AI heavily in Chrome for a while now. The company even recently announced that it used AI to squash over a thousand security bugs in the browser. So this move will likely further the company’s agenda to make Chrome a powerful AI browser.

Meanwhile, Relay is shutting down completely. Free accounts were cut off on August 15, and paying customers keep access until September 14 before everything gets deleted.

On its way out, the company told users it was “very sorry for the work this will cause you,” and it is issuing prorated refunds to annual subscribers. Several Relay employees are now following Bank over to the Chrome team.

So why Chrome, of all things? Bank shared his thoughts in a post on X. He says Chrome is already people’s main workspace, it works with every site without needing special hookups, and it is a great spot to hand work back and forth with AI.

He also promised “some really ambitious plans to help you work with AI in Chrome to get things done,” without spilling any actual details yet.

We do not have to guess too hard about the shape of it, though. Google has been busy. It is testing a voice-controlled assistant codenamed “Talk to Chrome” that can see your screen and click around for you, and it is even building a virtual “Try it on” tool that dresses you in clothes while you shop. There is a fun one coming too, where Chrome can turn a boring article into a podcast-style chat you can listen to.

All of this does come with baggage. Some of it runs on your machine, and Chrome now wants around 20GB of free space before it downloads those on-device AI models. Not everyone is thrilled about the AI push either, and Bank did ask for feedback, so he will probably get an earful.

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