Google adds AI Skills to Chrome to help you save favorite workflows

In an exciting development for web users, Google has unveiled a new AI feature for its Chrome browser named Skills. This innovative addition, announced on Tuesday, allows individuals to save and reuse their preferred AI prompts, streamlining their online activities across various web pages without the need to retype commands. The rollout of Skills coincides with the integration of Google's Gemini AI into Chrome, competing with emerging technologies from companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, and The Browser Company. Gemini empowers users to interact with web pages by summarizing content and answering queries, but the introduction of Skills takes this functionality to a new level. With Skills, users can create specific AI prompts that are easily accessible with a simple click. For example, if someone frequently requests vegan alternatives while browsing recipe sites, they can now save that prompt for future use. Accessing this feature is straightforward—users can save their desired prompt from their chat history and then retrieve it in Gemini by either typing a forward slash (/) or clicking the plus sign (+). These saved Skills operate on the current webpage and any additional tabs selected by the user. Moreover, Google has indicated that these Skills can be edited whenever necessary, providing flexibility to adapt to changing needs. Initial tests have shown that early users of Skills have leveraged the feature for diverse tasks, particularly in health and wellness, such as calculating nutritional information in recipes, as well as for shopping comparisons and document summarization. To facilitate engagement with this new feature, Google is launching a Skills library that showcases common tasks and workflows spanning areas like productivity, shopping, and budgeting. Users can easily incorporate pre-programmed Skills into their collections and customize them further to fit their specific requirements. As with other functionalities powered by Gemini in Chrome, Skills will prompt users for confirmation before executing certain actions, such as sending emails or adding calendar events. The rollout of this feature begins today for Chrome desktop users who are logged into their Google accounts, with initial availability limited to those using the English (US) version of the browser.