If you’re a fan of Google’s Gemini AI service, you might want to inject it into your Chrome browser. This will let you add responses alongside your Google search engine results, pull in real-time flight info for personalized travel planning, search hotels based on what’s important to you, add location-based information, summarize, find, and get quick answers from your own content, and get answers about YouTube videos.
Also: I ranked the AI features announced at Google I/O from most useful to gimmicky
All of these benefits can be added to Chrome for free, and I’m going to show you how to do it.
How to add Gemini features
What you’ll need: To make these features work, you’ll only need two things: an updated Chrome browser and a Google account. I’ll demonstrate how to add Gemini to Chrome version 125.0.6422.60.
You can add as many or as few of the features as you like.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
After enabling these features, go to gemini.google.com and click the + sign in the left sidebar to start a new chat, powered by the extensions you’ve enabled.
Install the Gemini Side Panel extension
What you did earlier was enable extensions within the Gemini service. This time around, we’ll add an extension to Chrome that opens Gemini as a sidebar. This isn’t the official Google Gemini Extension because, quite honestly, that one is pretty worthless.
Also: Meet Gemini AI Live: Like FaceTiming with a friend who knows everything
You can install the Gemini Side Panel extension from the Chrome Web Store by clicking Install and then, when prompted, clicking Add Extension.
Once installed, click the extension icon to open the Gemini sidebar and start using the service. Trust me when I tell you this is the way to go, as the official Chrome extension only seems to do what Google Search is already doing (displaying Gemini results alongside standard search results).
This is the feature Google should have created in the first place.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Enable experimental AI features
You can also enable experimental AI features in Chrome. The operative word is experimental. Some features may not work as expected and some may never get added to the service. To access the AI settings page, type chrome://settings/ai in the Chrome search bar and hit Enter.
Click the On/Off slider for “Try out experimental AI features.”
Enabling experimental features for Gemini doesn’t always pan out.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
When I enabled experimental features, only one appeared: the Tab organizer. After I enabled the feature, a new entry appeared in the tab right-click menu, labeled Organize Similar Tabs. As expected, this feature was pretty buggy and I couldn’t get it to work.
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Given this feature is listed as experimental, that’s to be expected. Again, your mileage may vary with this feature, but it’s nice to see what Google has in the pipeline.
There you go. You’ve given Chrome an AI-enabled boost that can change how you interact with Gemini. From my perspective, the only way to take full advantage of these features is through the Gemini Side Panel. I say that because I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine and still want to access Gemini without opening a new tab and going to the Gemini page.