New Google Chrome feature changes everything for lazy people

In addition to URLs and search, Chrome’s address bar now lets you ask questions to Gemini, Google’s chatbot. The company is also rolling out its expansions in France.

Facing OpenAI and its formidable ChatGPT, Google has a weapon: its services. Gemini isn’t a household name yet, but Chrome, Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Android all have good popularity ratings. This is an undeniable advantage in the race for generative artificial intelligence, since Google could suddenly provide this feature to billions of users. OpenAI doesn’t have that amazing power.

On April 30, Google announced that it was deploying its Gemini chatbot directly into Chrome’s address bar. The sentence, preceded by @gemini, will allow you to directly request artificial intelligence without going to Gemini.google.com. Eventually @gemini will be able to integrate with other services.

Gemini, a friend who wishes you well

With this change, which we believe will be highlighted in the next Chrome update, Google will make its chatbot even more accessible. Logic dictates that one day @gemini will be accessible from any web page (to generate text for every reply), as well as across all Google services. The I/O conference scheduled for May 14 should reveal more about Google’s intentions in this area.

Mention of Gemini in the address bar. // Source: Capture Numerama — Mention of Gemini in the address bar. // Source: Numerama Capture

Google extensions have already arrived in France, but the app has not arrived yet

Another announcement of the day: Google extensions that let you query YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Drive, flights, hotels and maps are coming to France. They’ve been available in the US since September 2023 (when Gemini was still called Bard), but it took Google a while to adapt them to French.

For further

Google Bard France // Source: Numerama from Midjourney

This change makes Google Gemini a great travel planning assistant.

In addition to ideas for activities, he can find flight tickets, hotel rooms and YouTube videos to watch. Its ability to search for email also makes it more practical than before, with a distinct advantage over ChatGPT. It’s not for nothing that Google pays special attention to this aspect.

The appearance of Google extensions that must be activated manually. // Source: Capture Numerama

The only absence of the day: Google’s Gemini app, which could replace Assistant on Android, is still not arriving in France. Google is expanding its reach to other countries, but the European Union remains left out. However, you can bypass this ban by downloading the APK manually.

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