Gemini Spark now has Chrome web-browsing capabilities

Google's agentic AI assistant Spark can now integrate with the company's Chrome web browser. Once logged in to Chrome, Spark "can use your logged-in accounts and saved passwords to handle tedious web errands." This is a modern AI tool, so the tedious web errands that Spark handles seem to revolve around "researching flight options and starting the booking process." When did booking flights become the number one pain point of existing?

The company did suggest that it could also be used for "scheduling viewings of apartments." Those are the only two use case examples provided by Google. Engadget has reached out to the company to ask for more information as to what this integration means for actual users. We'll update this post when we hear back.

Google has noted some safety features, for those wary of handing off passwords and log-in information to an AI assistant. The company says there are tools in place to protect against prompt injection, which is when prompts are hidden on malicious websites and user-generated content. These prompts can force the assistant to take unwanted actions, "such as initiating financial transactions or exfiltrating sensitive data."

The company hasn't provided concrete details on these safety tools, other than saying it's "investing in a layered defense that includes both deterministic and probabilistic defenses to make it difficult and costly for attackers to cause harm." Additionally, Spark won't complete payments on its own, handing it back to the user to review and finish the purchase. That's good to know.

This new feature is rolling out now in the US, with more regions to come in the future. To that end, the company just expanded Spark access to Google AI Pro subscribers in over 160 countries. The AI assistant also integrates with Google's Workspace apps.