Richard MacManus: "But now, with Chrome in 2025, that paradigm is changing. I’m worried we are losing the “read” part of browsers, too — or at least, the motivation to “read” webpages directly. This new Chrome wants to summarize the open web for you and do the browsing itself (which is what “agentic capabilities” really means, in practical terms).
Google Chrome GM Parisa Tabriz concludes her blog post with this observation: “The browser is no longer just a window to the web; it’s an intelligent partner that learns and adapts to your needs.”
I would go further. It feels like with Gemini in Chrome, Google is closing the curtains on that window to the web. Sure, you can still open those curtains if you want to — Google isn’t preventing you from doing that. But from now on, I suspect most of us will be content to stay indoors and let our agents surf the web for us. Why go outside, into the open web, when Google’s AI delivers everything you need?"