Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Chrome may soon get an easier way to access the Ask Gemini shortcut while highlighting text.
- This updated shortcut will also instantly copy highlighted text to Gemini’s side panel, saving you some time in the process.
- The feature was spotted in a Chrome Canary build and it’s unclear when it will be available to all Chrome users.
It’s hard to use a Google product these days without seeing some form of Gemini integration, and the Chrome browser is no exception. Gemini in Chrome era expanded earlier this year to include more regions and languages, and now it looks like Google is preparing some additional quality of life improvements for this integration.
The people of Windows report have discovered a new Ask Gemini toolbar that appears when text on a web page is highlighted. This toolbar contains an “Ask Gemini” button, along with shortcuts for Copy, Share, and a three-dot menu.
However, it is not just a visual addition. As the source points out, tapping the “Ask Gemini” shortcut from this toolbar will automatically copy the highlighted text and paste it into the Gemini Side Panel.
It’s difficult to determine where the three-dot menu would be located from these screenshots. However, we know its contents, namely “Hide for this site” and “Settings”. The former will prevent the toolbar from appearing on that particular website, while Settings redirects users to the standard Chrome settings page, according to the post.
While this can already be achieved by highlighting text and using the “Ask Gemini” shortcut in the context menu (as shown above), the new toolbar in Chrome Canary eliminates a couple of steps.
Some deeper digging Windows report has revealed a dedicated settings page for this toolbar, which may contain a list of exceptions for sites where the popup should not appear.
This discovery was reportedly made in an unnamed version of Chrome Canary, although being on the latest version of Canary does not guarantee that the new toolbar will appear.
A quick check of my Chrome browser (stable and Canary) confirms this, although it may not be long before the in-development toolbar leaves Canary and reaches the stable version of Google’s popular web browser. That said, the appearance of a feature in Canary does not necessarily guarantee that it will reach the stable version of the browser.
For people who regularly use Gemini in Chrome to delve deeper into a particular topic, this additional feature would be good news.
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