Google Chrome Adds AI-Generated Store Summaries

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Google on Monday announced an update to its Chrome web browser that will introduce AI-generated store reviews to U.S. shoppers with the aim of helping to determine the best places to make a purchase. The feature, which will be available by clicking an icon just to the left of the web address in the browser, will display a pop-up that informs consumers about the store’s reputation for things like product quality, shopping, pricing, customer service, and returns.

The feature, which is currently available only in English, will generate the summaries based on reviews from partners, including Bazaarvoice, Bizrate Insights, Reputation.com, Reseller Ratings, ScamAdviser, Trustpilot, TurnTo, Yotpo, Verified Reviews, and others.

I have never heard of a single one of these “partners”. It’s bad enough that so many web pages themselves are increasingly covered with distracting junk, much of it AI-generated slop. But now browsers themselves will be adding their own layers of distracting cruft atop the websites. The entire premise of Chrome — the reason for its name — is that it was originally designed to simplify the UI of the browser app itself, the “chrome”, at a time when Internet Explorer and even Firefox were increasingly cluttered and confusing. I feel like this is a sign that Chrome is completely losing its way — AI-generated slop from the browser layered atop AI-generated slop in the underlying web pages.

Dare Obasanjo, on Bluesky, takes this news credulously:

Google Chrome is now going to provide AI generated summaries of online stores covering topics like customer service, product quality, shipping, pricing and return policy.

This is on the heels of Microsoft Edge announcing Copilot mode earlier today. Apple’s Safari is being left behind in the AI wars.

I would argue that Safari is looking ever more like a proverbial glass of ice water in hell. These Chrome AI overviews (Chrome is also, for example, going to start presenting its own AI-generated menu summaries for restaurants) don’t seem like user-centric features to me. They seem like features designed to turn the dial up on Google’s slice of commissions from web transactions.

★ Tuesday, 29 July 2025