ChatGPT’s Chrome extension adds open-tab context and browser actions
OpenAI has upgraded ChatGPT’s Chrome extension to gather information from open tabs, organize them and carry out browser tasks through Work. Side chat also brings conversation history alongside the current webpage. The company describes comparisons, form filling and file downloads among the uses. Its documentation sets website permissions separately from access to browser history and describes how browser activity can enter chat context.
Artificial Intelligence··Morning
Open tabs become context for ChatGPT
OpenAI upgraded ChatGPT’s Chrome extension on October 15 to gather information from open tabs, group tabs and carry out browser tasks. Chat can draw on open pages when preparing an answer. Work, the part of ChatGPT intended for longer tasks, can control tabs for activities such as sending messages, filling forms and downloading files. The side chat places the assistant alongside the website already open.[1], [2]
The side chat also opens the user’s ChatGPT conversation history. OpenAI’s examples include comparing products in separate tabs, explaining an article’s main argument and putting information from several pages into a comparison sheet. Another example fills an event registration form and pauses before submission. These are the uses the company has announced for the upgraded extension.[1]
Website permissions are assigned by domain
OpenAI’s documentation says the extension can work on websites where a user is already signed in. By default it asks before interacting with each new site, with permission based on that site’s host. Users may permit a single interaction, allow a particular site, allow all sites or refuse. Allowed and blocked domains are shared across supported browsers, so those choices apply across the browser integrations.[1]
Browser history has a separate permission boundary: access applies only to the individual request, with no permanent approval option. The extension’s store description says it asks before referring to browser history and before uploading or downloading files. The documentation also describes using selected text as chat context and asking questions about an open page, alongside the ability to mention open tabs.[1]
Browser information can enter the conversation
OpenAI says it does not keep a separate complete log of all extension browser actions. Information may nevertheless be stored when it becomes part of ChatGPT context, including text read from pages, screenshots, tool calls and summaries. Conversation history and content drawn from a webpage therefore sit within the chat experience described in the documentation. The extension combines these contextual features with the separately permitted browser tasks.[1]
