OpenAI announced on October 15, 2026 that its ChatGPT Chrome extension can now look across a user’s open browser tabs, take control of those tabs to complete tasks, and organize and group tabs, extending its computer-use capability to an extension the Chrome Web Store lists at 7,000,000 users. In a series of posts on X from its official ChatGPT account, the company said it was bringing “the power of computer use to anyone who uses Chrome.”
In the announcement, OpenAI said that in Chat, the assistant can look across a user’s open tabs to gather information and make answers more useful. In Work, OpenAI’s agent for longer, more involved tasks, ChatGPT can control Chrome tabs for tasks such as sending messages, filling out forms, and downloading files. It can also help organize and group open tabs, the company said.
In a follow-up post, OpenAI said that using ChatGPT within a Chrome tab received what it called a major upgrade, bringing the full power of ChatGPT into the browser. A user’s entire ChatGPT history is present, OpenAI said, and users can ask questions in Chat or get things done in Work side by side with the site they are on.
Sample Prompts and the Store Listing
In a third post, OpenAI listed sample prompts for the upgraded extension. They include comparing three couches open in separate tabs by dimensions, material, delivery time, and return policy; asking for a plain-English explanation of an article’s main argument and supporting evidence; comparing pricing pages against stated requirements; using an event brief to fill out a registration form while stopping before submission; moving vendors from open tabs into a comparison sheet with pricing, key features, and source links; comparing contractor services across tabs and drafting an email to the chosen one; and filling out a dentist form in Chrome while adding the appointment to work and personal calendars.
The extension’s Chrome Web Store listing, offered by OpenAI, shows version 1.26.1005.11759, updated October 15, 2026, and reports 7,000,000 users. The listing states that the extension lets ChatGPT on desktop and web pull in context and take action in tabs, with access to the user’s installed plugins, full conversation history, and local file system if connected. It states that ChatGPT can work inside the browser in the background without taking over the active browsing session, and that ChatGPT will always ask for permission when referencing browser history and when downloading or uploading files.
Capabilities listed on the store page include research across live and authenticated websites; creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and slides; data entry into record systems such as timesheets, inventory, and content management systems; summarizing and answering questions about any tab; filing expenses and downloading files and images in bulk; testing and validating websites; and organizing and cleaning up tabs. The listing’s data-handling disclosures state that user data is not sold to third parties outside approved use cases, is not used or transferred for purposes unrelated to the extension’s core functionality, and is not used to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes.
Setup, Permissions, and Stored Data
OpenAI’s browser-extension documentation states that the extension works with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi from the ChatGPT desktop app, with side chat available in Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi but not in Opera. Setup runs through the Computer Use section of the desktop app’s settings: users install the extension from the browser’s store, confirm the browser shows a Manage option, and select the browser with an @-mention in a ChatGPT Work or Codex chat. The documentation says ChatGPT can read or act on sites where the user is already signed in, naming LinkedIn, Salesforce, Gmail, and internal tools as examples.
Documented in-browser features include mentioning open tabs to use them as context, bringing highlighted page text into a chat, right-clicking a page and selecting Ask ChatGPT, and asking questions about a YouTube video using its timestamped transcript when captions are available. Chats started in side chat appear in the ChatGPT app, and recent ChatGPT chats can be opened in the side chat.
By default, the documentation states, ChatGPT asks before interacting with each new website, based on the site’s host. Users can choose Allow once, Allow for this site, Allow for all sites, or Decline, and can manage allowlist and blocklist domains that are shared across the supported browsers. The documentation labels Allow for all sites and browser-history access as Elevated Risk, and says history access is scoped to the individual request, with no always-allow option.
Chrome’s install-time permission prompts for the extension can include reading and changing data on all websites, browsing history across signed-in devices, bookmarks, downloads, notifications, tab groups, debugger access, and communication with cooperating native applications. The documentation states that OpenAI does not keep a separate complete record of browser actions from the extension, storing browser activity only when it becomes part of the ChatGPT context, such as text read from a page, screenshots, tool calls, summaries, or messages. Computer Use follows the user’s Memories setting, and the documentation advises treating page content as untrusted and avoiding sending secrets through browser tasks unless they are required and reviewed.
From Atlas to the Extension
The upgrade continues a transition documented in OpenAI’s ChatGPT release notes. On July 9, 2026, OpenAI said it was deprecating its Atlas browser, which was scheduled to stop working on August 9, 2026, and pointed users seeking help while browsing in Chrome to the ChatGPT Chrome extension or sidebar. On August 31, 2026, the release notes said the extension had been extended to Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi, noting that Opera supports tab mentions and browser control but not side chat.
OpenAI said the updated extension is available for all ChatGPT plans and can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store.
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