OpenAI has upgraded its ChatGPT extension for Google Chrome, so the assistant can read the tabs a user already has open. According to The Verge, the add-on pulls information from those tabs when Chrome is tagged inside ChatGPT's web or desktop app, and OpenAI posted a demo of someone asking ChatGPT to weigh three open tabs of sofas under consideration. That update puts OpenAI against Google's Gemini-powered auto-browse feature. It also pushes ChatGPT closer to the point in the web where shopping research turns into a transaction.
Where the assistant sits decides who gets the sale. If ChatGPT can read a row of open product tabs and act on them, the entry point for a purchase shifts from a search results page to a conversation, and the comparison a shopper makes is one the assistant performs. Listings that expose clean prices, stock status and specifications in a form a machine can parse stay visible in that exchange. Ones wrapped in images and scripts have less to hand over. OpenAI lists form-filling, file downloads and tab grouping among the actions ChatGPT Work can take in Chrome.
The sidebar build carries the full ChatGPT and conversation history from Chat or Work, so a session follows the user from page to page. Tagging Chrome inside ChatGPT is what triggers the read.
Google already ships a version of this. Its Gemini-powered auto-browse can run tasks in the browser. Both assistants now compete for the same everyday jobs: comparing products, sending messages, moving files. For retailers, the practical question is whether an assistant becomes the first place a shopper asks about a product, and if it does, a retailer's own site and app become a fulfillment step while the work of winning the click moves to whoever controls the assistant. Product research that once meant opening a half-dozen store tabs collapses into a single request.
ChatGPT's Atlas browser is gone, The Verge noted, which leaves a Google product as OpenAI's main path into browsing. Reach through Chrome arrives fast, and it puts the terms of that reach in a competitor's hands.
Adoption still requires the extension to be installed. It runs only through Chrome users who choose to add it.