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Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

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Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#11

Post by shakna »

lmm wrote: post #9
firefoxd wrote: post #6

I must be using web browsers completely wrong. Like browsing a page isn't a problem for me. I can do it at the speed of my needs. I'm having a hard time understanding why I will tell gemini to create an account on some website for me or send an email. Those are usually just a tab away. That's why I feel like I'm missing something here.

Maybe you're only using well-designed sites? Try making a booking with a Chinese airline and you'll quickly wish for an assistant to delegate it all to.

If you struggle, then an agent will probably fail.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#12

Post by jsnell »

firefoxd wrote: post #6

I must be using web browsers completely wrong. Like browsing a page isn't a problem for me. I can do it at the speed of my needs. I'm having a hard time understanding why I will tell gemini to create an account on some website for me or send an email. Those are usually just a tab away. That's why I feel like I'm missing something here.

Basically none of their examples are just "browse a page"? They're multi-step tasks combining data from multiple pages.

Like the first example in the demo carousel (the Y2K party) starts from a photo and a prompt of roughly "buy the props needed for replicating this photo from Etsy". It first analyzes the image in the current tab, identifies a bunch of things to buy, searches for them on Etsy, customizes the orders, adds them to the shopping basket, and then asks for a confirmation to actually send an order.

The second one auto-fills a form with a couple of dozen fields from the data that's in a pdf in another tab. (And in the fiction of a demo, presumably a pdf that's you already had around, not one that you made just for the purposes of using it to auto-fill the form.)

I'm not the target market for this: automating a browser with my credentials is just too scary, but I can certainly see the utility. There's a huge amount of tasks taking a minute or two are not worth creating bespoke automation for but that are also pretty mechanical processes.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#13

Post by ares623 »

shakna wrote: post #11
lmm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're only using well-designed sites? Try making a booking with a Chinese airline and you'll quickly wish for an assistant to delegate it all to.

If you struggle, then an agent will probably fail.

Will it matter if you can’t tell?

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#14

Post by mogili1 »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

Serious question, not snark: Does anyone actually want this? I honestly can't imagine a use for these features even among people tech savvy enough to understand them.

I use claude's chrome plugin all the time. As well Chatgpt's agent mode. I prefer Agent mode when I don't need to login but want it to do search.

However, Gemini in Chrome requires you to allow them to use your data to improve their model, which I won't consent to. Google workspace account seems exempt so I plan to try it out there.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#15

Post by captain_coffee »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

Serious question, not snark: Does anyone actually want this? I honestly can't imagine a use for these features even among people tech savvy enough to understand them.

Me personally: absolutely not - and I fundamentally do not understand the need for something like this. I would never use such a tool under any possible circumstance knowing what I know about the current technology underpinning these clankers.

These feels on par with Microsoft's push to shove Copilot down everyone's neck at every step possible whether we like/need it or not

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#16

Post by walletdrainer »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

Serious question, not snark: Does anyone actually want this? I honestly can't imagine a use for these features even among people tech savvy enough to understand them.

I use AI-controlled browsers for everyday tasks like “Find me a Michelin starred restaurant in Paris with availability for 4 people at 8PM today”.

Also for things like locating a product available to pick up in a nearby store, it’s crazy how often Google fails at this particular task.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#17

Post by bandrami »

firefoxd wrote: post #6

I must be using web browsers completely wrong. Like browsing a page isn't a problem for me. I can do it at the speed of my needs. I'm having a hard time understanding why I will tell gemini to create an account on some website for me or send an email. Those are usually just a tab away. That's why I feel like I'm missing something here.

I feel that way about IDEs too, though. My text editor has snippets, my file manager shows me what files are where, and my terminal lets me run programs. Why it's important to people that these functions to be grafted into a single window escapes me.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#19

Post by raincole »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

Serious question, not snark: Does anyone actually want this? I honestly can't imagine a use for these features even among people tech savvy enough to understand them.

If it skips ads many people would want it. But it's made by Google so I suspect it's goal is to skip non-Google ads only.

Re: Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome

#20

Post by TheCapeGreek »

hackyhacky wrote: post #5

Serious question, not snark: Does anyone actually want this? I honestly can't imagine a use for these features even among people tech savvy enough to understand them.

I've seen at least one decent use case from "normies" around me: Bypassing stupid company processes to achieve actual automated productivity in your rote processes instead of the theatre of it.

Sounds like a contrived situation, but there's a surprising amount of "thought leader" CEOs out there who make completely nonsensical decisions under the banner of "saving costs and automating things".

(Real-world example I know of) company pays for cheapest tier they can find of Gemini, tell everyone to use it. But won't pay for Asana seats, so every user in your 100-person startup is a guest, and can't use the connector in any AI app to TRULY do useful task management with AI.

Having some better access to AI in the browser would pave over that pain for someone who currently doesn't want to spend their own money on something like Claude for Cowork and the Chrome extension to drive the browser, or open a terminal to have Claude Code do it.

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