Google Expands Gemini AI Assistant to Chrome Users in India and Beyond

Google announced a significant expansion of its Gemini AI assistant this week, bringing its integration within the Chrome browser to users in India, Canada, and New Zealand. This move places a powerful AI tool directly into the sidebar of the desktop browser, allowing it to interact with web pages, user data, and other Google services.

The feature, identified by an "Ask Gemini" icon on the tab bar, enables users to summarize articles, ask questions about on-screen content, or even generate quizzes from a webpage. A notable function allows Gemini to analyze and compare information across multiple open browser tabs, which could simplify tasks like product research or travel planning.

For the Indian rollout, Google emphasized local language support, adding Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil to the list of languages Gemini understands. The AI can also connect to a user's Google account, drawing context from Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and YouTube to provide personalized answers. Practical applications include drafting emails within the sidebar or getting a timestamped summary of a YouTube video.

Additionally, users can access the image-generation tool Nano Banana 2 through Gemini to, for example, visualize how a new piece of furniture might look in their room.

While the core sidebar feature is now arriving in these new regions, Google confirmed that more advanced "agentic" capabilities, which allow the AI to autonomously control a browser to complete tasks, remain limited to its U.S.-based AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers for now. The company also noted that Gemini support within Chrome for iOS devices in India will follow soon, accessible via the address bar's page tools icon.

Source: TechCrunch