OpenAI pushed an update to ChatGPT's Google Chrome extension on Wednesday that lets the chatbot see, and in some cases act on, whatever tabs a user already has open, the company said alongside a demo video.
The trick is tagging Chrome inside a ChatGPT conversation on the web or desktop app. In Chat mode, ChatGPT scans the open tabs and pulls out whatever is relevant. OpenAI's own example: three furniture sites open at once, and a request to compare the sofas on size, materials, delivery time and return policy. The same approach works for explaining a dense article in plain language or lining up competing subscription plans side by side.
Work mode goes further. OpenAI says ChatGPT can take over the browser itself there, filling out forms, sending messages, downloading files and sorting a cluttered pile of tabs into groups. It can also pull details from several open pages and drop them into a comparison sheet, according to OpenAI.
The extension also adds a sidebar version of ChatGPT that carries a user's full conversation history in either mode, so there's no need to leave the page being read to keep chatting.
The update lands days after OpenAI shut down ChatGPT Atlas, the standalone browser it had built to do much of this natively. Folding tab access back into a Chrome extension suggests OpenAI decided the extension route, working inside the browser people already use, was the more practical path than asking users to switch browsers entirely. The Work mode's tab control also echoes Google's own Gemini-powered "auto browse" feature, which performs comparable tasks inside Chrome.
It's a notable concession from OpenAI either way: rather than compete with Chrome for users, it's building directly on top of it.
Alongside the Chrome changes, OpenAI also shipped GPT-Live-1.1, an update to ChatGPT's voice mode that adds 13 new voices and is meant to sound more natural across non-English languages, including French, German, Hindi, Mexican Spanish, Korean and Japanese. OpenAI says the voice update is rolling out to all ChatGPT users now, with an API version expected to follow.
OpenAI has not said whether the tab-reading feature requires a paid ChatGPT tier or what data, if any, it stores from the tabs it scans. Given that Work mode can fill out forms and send messages on a user's behalf, how much access the extension needs and what it does with that access is the detail worth watching as it rolls out more broadly in the coming weeks.
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Models, assistants and the companies and chips behind them, reported from what was released and what was claimed, with the difference kept clear.
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