Google’s AI Mode Update Aims to Eliminate Tab Switching in Chrome

You’ll never need to stress over the numerous tabs on your desktop again. In fact, you won’t even have to exit AI Mode, Google’s chatbot-style search tool, at all. That’s the concept behind the latest update for Google Chrome.

Effective today in the US, when you click a hyperlink in AI Mode on the desktop version of Chrome, the link opens right there—with Google’s search chatbot remaining visible as a sidebar on the left side of the screen.

Previously, clicking on a hyperlink within one of Google Search’s AI Mode outputs opened a new browser tab in the same window. This action essentially concluded your search journey, leaving AI Mode in the previous tab. The update to AI Mode indicates that once you initiate a search with this tool in Chrome, the search function becomes a persistent aspect of your user experience.

In a sample interaction shared by Google, a user types a detailed query into the AI Mode search bar. They’re on the lookout for a Ninja coffee maker that fits their small apartment’s counter space, brews excellent lattes, and is user-friendly. AI Mode scours the web and generates results suggesting several compact single-serve Ninja models.

When the user clicks on a link for one of the products, Ninja’s website appears in the same tab, while AI Mode shifts to a sidebar on the left side of the screen. This setup lets the user pose follow-up questions to the chatbot without switching back to the original search query. The user inquires about cleaning the coffee maker in AI Mode and selects a pertinent YouTube video, which also appears in the same tab with the search tool beside it.

It’s important to note that during WIRED’s testing of similar AI search tools for product recommendations, AI summaries were not as precise or dependable as reading directly from a website.

Another new feature of this update, aimed at curbing tab hopping in Chrome, is the ability to search through multiple tabs you already have open, which may share a related topic. If you click the plus menu in AI Mode, or a new plus option right inside the Google Search box, you can select multiple tabs for the search tool to analyze as it formulates your answers. You can also attach files and images as part of your query.