Google's Chrome Agent Browses the Web for You—But Should It?

2.7 billion people use Chrome daily. Now, an AI agent wants to browse the web for them. Google's new Auto Browse feature promises to handle your tedious online tasks while you sit back and relax. But after putting it through its paces, the question isn't whether it works—it's whether you should let it.

The Agent That Never Sleeps

Google began rolling out Auto Browse to AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers earlier this month. Unlike OpenAI's Atlas agent, which operates in isolation, Auto Browse has extraordinary reach—it's baked into the world's dominant browser, giving it access to virtually every corner of the internet.

The pitch is compelling: tell the agent to compare prices across shopping sites, research vacation destinations, or gather information for work presentations. It'll click, scroll, and navigate while you focus on more important things.

Reality Check: The Good, Bad, and Glitchy

In practice, Auto Browse feels like hiring an intern who's eager but inconsistent. Simple tasks work surprisingly well. Ask it to find the best deals on laptops across three retailers, and it'll dutifully visit each site, compare specs, and present a neat summary.

But complexity breaks it. The agent struggles with multi-step processes, gets confused by dynamic content, and sometimes abandons tasks midway through. During testing, it failed to complete a hotel booking, got stuck in shopping cart loops, and occasionally clicked on ads instead of actual content.

The Middleman Problem

Here's where things get interesting—and concerning. When an AI agent becomes your primary interface with the web, Google effectively becomes the gatekeeper of your online experience. Which sites does it visit first? How does it rank results? These decisions, invisible to users, could reshape entire industries.

Retailers are already nervous. If Chrome's agent consistently favors certain shopping platforms or price comparison sites, it could dramatically shift traffic patterns. Amazon, eBay, and smaller e-commerce players now face a new reality: optimizing not just for human visitors, but for Google's AI preferences.

Privacy in the Age of Digital Butlers

Auto Browse requires unprecedented access to your browsing behavior. To work effectively, it needs to understand your preferences, remember your login credentials, and track your online patterns. Google promises user control and consent, but the trade-off is stark: convenience for privacy.

European regulators are already scrutinizing similar AI features under GDPR guidelines. The question isn't just what data Google collects, but how it uses that information to train future models and influence your choices.

The Serendipity Problem

There's something subtly profound happening here. When an AI agent handles your web browsing, you lose the random discoveries that make the internet magical—the unexpected article, the serendipitous find, the rabbit hole that leads somewhere fascinating.

Auto Browse optimizes for efficiency, but human browsing has never been just about efficiency. It's been about exploration, curiosity, and the joy of stumbling upon something unexpected.