Google seems set to bringing AI to all of its products, and newChrome releasesaren’t an exception. The company has been spotted working on a few AI-powered features over the past few months, including automatic tab organization and a ‘Compose’ option to write text for you. In the latest Chrome Canary release, a lot more details were uncovered about the latter feature.
While Google internally calls the text generation feature ‘Compose’ in Chrome, it will officially be called ‘Help me write’ once it’s finished and rolling out to people, as spotted by9to5GoogleandChrome expert Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter). This is the same name that Google uses for AI-enhanced writing in a lot of other products. As part of the Chrome Canary 122 rollout, the latest under-development build of the browser, the publication points to aChromium Gerrit entrythat spills some details on the feature.
Leopeva64 was able to activate the interface for ‘Help me write’ in Chrome 122, even if it still isn’t functional. When you use the feature, a ‘Help me write’ popup will appear floating above the text content. It will be accessible via Chrome’s autofill popup or via a right-click menu entry. To further refine the generated text, Google will also look at the content on the page itself rather than only rely on your prompt, as explained in one of the popups spotted by Leopeva64.
Along with the new ‘Help me write’ interface, Google keeps working on Chrome’s dedicated AI settings pane. Rather than calling itAdvancedas in the previous release, the companyis switching to a more fittingExperimental AIname. The entries within it now partially reference AI as well, with the top option now saying “Try out experimental AI features.” There is also a disclaimer that “these features use AI, are in early development, and won’t always get it right.”
9to5Google notes that the workflow looks similar to the system-wide ‘Help me write’ that Google is planning to bring toChromebook Plusdevices. It’s likely that ‘Help me write’ will remain exclusive to Chromebook Plus devices for the time being, with other Chromebooks left out. This exclusivity seems to stay in place even though ‘Help me write’ is supposed to come to the Chrome browser on other platforms.
With Google working on these features as part of Chrome 122, it’s likely that they won’t go live earlier than February 2024, if not later than that. In the meantime, you can use AI in a ton of different places, including Google Search, Workspace, Photos, andAndroid 14.
