Google adds AI image generation to Chrome browser, side panel option for virtual assistant
Jan 28, 2026, 10:01 AM
Google is empowering its Chrome browser with the ability to alter imagery and a virtual assistant to help with online tasks as part of its push to turbocharge its digital services with more artificial intelligence technology.
The features rolling out include making Google’s AI image generator and editing tool, Nano Banana, available to Chrome’s logged-in users on desktop computers in the United States. The expanded access to Nano Banana through the leading web browser may further blur the lines between real-life pictures and fabricated images.
The browser’s expansion will also offer an option for Chrome’s U.S. users to open a side panel so an AI-powered assistant can help with an assortment of chores while a user remains engaged with other online tasks.
Subscribers to Google’s AI Pro and Ultra services will also be able to activate an “auto browse” function that will log into websites, shop for merchandise on command and prepare posts on social media. Users will still have to manually complete purchases from the shopping carts prepared by AI and approve drafted social media posts.
The AI in Chrome relies on the Gemini 3 model that Google released late last year and is now being baked into many of the services that helped its corporate parent, Alphabet, recently surpass a market value of $4 trillion.
Earlier this month, Google tapped into Gemini to bring more AI features to Gmail as part of an effort to make that service behave more like a personal assistant and then funneled more of the technology into its search engine. in hopes of providing more relevant answers tailored to users’ individual tastes and habits.
The upgrades to Google’s search engine plug into the company’s “Personal Intelligence” technology that leverages AI to learn more about people’s lives. Google is promising to roll out a Personal Intelligence option in Chrome at some point later this year.
Chrome’s AI makeover is rolling out just a few months after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s push to force Google to sell the browser as part of the penalty for running an illegal monopoly in search. The judge rebuffed the proposed breakup partly because he believes AI already is reshaping the competitive landscape as smaller rivals such as OpenAI and Perplexity deploy the technology in chatbots and their own web browsers.
Before releasing its AI browser Atlas last October, OpenAI had expressed interest in buying Chrome if the breakup had been ordered. Perplexity, which offers an AI browser called Comet, even submitted a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome before the judge opted against a sale mandate.
