ChatGPT has officially "lived in" the Chrome browser: it can view web pages, operate tabs, and access your local files. OpenAI has released an upgrade announcement to fully update the ChatGPT extension for Google Chrome.

ChatGPT has officially "lived in" the Chrome browser: it can view web pages, operate tabs, and access your local files. OpenAI has released an upgrade announcement to fully update the ChatGPT extension for Google Chrome browser. Users can now use ChatGPT directly in the Chrome sidebar without switching to a standalone application or web page. The AI ​​assistant has truly become a "browser native". According to the official introduction, the upgraded extension allows ChatGPT to research the market, compare sources, extract information from websites, or open and improve files in Google Workspace and Microsoft365 within the application. It can use the browser to bring in up-to-date context, perform step actions between web pages, and continue to advance the work while the user reviews and guides the results. This means that ChatGPT is no longer just a dialog box that passively waits for questions, but an agent that can actively browse web pages, read content, and coordinate tasks across tabs. You can see highlighted content, control tabs, and access local files. James Sun of OpenAI revealed more technical details. The extension can see the full context of the browser, including what the user has highlighted, can control the user's tabs, and can access the local file system and installed plugins. Every conversation thread started by the user in the browser will be displayed in the desktop application, and any task started in the desktop application can also be referenced, achieving a seamless connection between the browser and the desktop. These capabilities are built on the Atlas browser experience previously launched by OpenAI. Atlas is the exclusive AI browser that OpenAI once tried to build. Now the company has chosen to embed all the functions of ChatGPT and Codex directly into Chrome, the browser with the largest market share in the world, instead of continuing to maintain an independent browser product. The official stated that it will gradually decommission the independent Atlas browser and will share relevant information with users on how to migrate to the ChatGPT extension. From "independent browser" to "parasitic strategy", OpenAI chose a pragmatic route. This strategic shift revealed a clear pragmatic logic. Rather than building a browser from scratch to compete with Chrome for user habits, it is better to directly embed AI capabilities into the platform that users are already using. Chrome accounts for about 60% of the global browser market, and the ChatGPT extension has settled in the sidebar of Chrome, which means that OpenAI can reach a large number of users with zero friction. When the AI ​​assistant can read the context of web pages, operate tabs, and access local files, the role of the browser is evolving from an "information display window" to an "A