For as long as I can remember, my online shopping habits have been the same: open a plethora of tabs until the problem goes away.
Buying a new accessory for my Mac meant a dozen tabs, one for each product, and then bouncing between them to compare its specs, features, and pricing.
Eventually, I’d end the day with tons of browser tabs open, a headache, and a pending purchase.
Gemini in Google Chrome has finally broken that habit for good.
Instead of opening 10 tabs and doing the hard work of comparing things myself, I now open a few and let Gemini do the heavy lifting.
Product research always left me buried in tabs
I was calling manual labor ‘research’
I always do thorough research before making any purchase. Be it a TV, a laptop, or a refrigerator.
Typically, that involves reading about the main products, going through their reviews, specs, and features, and then comparing them.
Now, before you say that I can ask Gemini or ChatGPT for the same information, I’ve found them unreliable and inaccurate for the job.
On many occasions, they have invented features or specs that never existed. Worse, the pricing is also almost wrong. And they provide this information with full confidence.
There have been many instances when Gemini or ChatGPT confidently served me straight-up incorrect information.
Due to this, I’m forced to do the research myself: jumping between several open tabs, manually comparing products, and then (hopefully) making a purchase decision.
Gemini in Chrome to the rescue
It works with my research, not against it
Gemini in Chrome works in a way that fits my research habits.
It does not do the research itself, relying on its own training data and scouting the web for (inaccurate) information.
Instead, it reads the pages I’ve opened, the real spec sheets and review sites I already trust, and bases its answers on the information in front of it.
In a nutshell, Gemini in Chrome grounds its information on the open pages, and that makes all the difference.
Now, when researching several products, I open a few tabs — the sources I trust — and ask Gemini to compare them and find me the best option.
Likewise, if I have made up my mind to buy a device, I open Amazon and a few other e-commerce sites and ask Gemini to summarize the best offer from each.
All this previously used to take up at least an hour of my time and a lot of mental energy. Now, it takes a few minutes, with Gemini doing all the hard work.
Gemini in Chrome is not only limited to helping me make informed purchase decisions. I also use it to come up with a rough travel itinerary, which I can then show to my family and refine as needed.
While I use the Gemini app for planning holidays, I still prefer digging through Reddit and travel forums for tips and recommendations that come from people who have made the trip.
Again, that means drowning in a bunch of open tabs, reading through posts and replies, and trying to figure out the best places to visit.
Gemini takes care of this now. I trigger Gemini in Chrome, point it to the relevant tabs, and ask it to find and summarize places worth visiting, keeping in mind my family’s preferences.
Skills bring custom workflows to Gemini in Chrome
Gemini in Chrome is not a one-trick feature
Skills make the entire experience of using Gemini in Chrome even better. Think of them as saved prompts with a specific purpose.
You reuse those skills in Gemini as needed, saving the hassle of typing the long prompt every time. And you don’t need to create them yourself.
The Chrome team offers a bunch of ready-made Gemini skills you can add to the browser, sorted into neat categories like Research, Shopping, Learning, and Writing.
Thanks to skills, I no longer have to type a long prompt every time I want a price or feature comparison across my open tabs.
The Shopping skill already knows that’s the job, so I select the open browser tabs and run it.
Because of the time and effort saved, I’m now using Gemini in Chrome for simple tasks, such as quickly summarizing a long article or review, or confirming refund details and deadlines.
I don’t miss my wall of tabs one bit
For years, opening a plethora of Chrome tabs and combing through the information in them was a key part of my research process.
It made me feel like I was doing my homework.
Looking back, I realize I was mostly wasting time sifting through piles of information just to find the few details that I really needed.
Gemini in Chrome now handles the boring part of my research, saving me from juggling dozens of open tabs.
I still make the final decisions, but because I point it to trusted sources, I know I can rely on the information Gemini pulls together.
With the time and effort I’m saving, I don’t see myself going back to my old way of researching.
