As the browser wars heat up, Chrome is adding new productivity features

As artificial intelligence companies and startups make their way into the web browser market, the world’s largest browser, Google Chrome, is rolling out a host of new features. On Thursday, the company announced the official launch of three options, including Split View, PDF annotations, and a “Save to Google Drive” feature, designed to more deeply integrate Chrome with one of Google’s other online services.

Although these specific extensions aren’t focused on AI, Google has already integrated its Gemini AI assistant into Chrome. The move was made in response to increasing competition from AI providers such as OpenAI and Perplexity, which dabble in proxy browsers. The so-called browser wars have pushed Google to be less slack in terms of developing and releasing more consumer-facing features.

With Split View, multitasking in Chrome just got easier as the feature puts two pages side by side in the same tab. This allows you to work across two web pages or watch a video while taking notes, among other things. To use this feature, you have to drag a tab to the left or right edge of the browser window or right-click on the link and select “Open link in split view.” The tabs will automatically lock into place. When it is no longer needed, you can exit the Split View layout via an option found via right-click.

Another practical addition is PDF’s annotations feature, which lets you add notes to a PDF file or highlight its text from the browser. This means you don’t have to download a PDF and then open it in another application to deal with its content. This option, which has been a long time coming, can make doing basic PDF tasks much easier, such as digitally signing a document, filling out a form, taking notes within a file or personal document, and more.

Finally, the new Save to Google Drive feature will allow you to save any PDF file directly to your Google Drive account, instead of to your computer, where it might get lost. When you use this feature, saved files will appear in the Saved from Chrome folder in Drive, making them easier to find.

Today’s update follows the expansion of Gemini and other proxy features for Chromebook users last month. And Chrome is soon poised to adopt another change that its competitors were the first to pioneer: support for vertical tabs. (Technology users can enable this option now, in beta, by changing the flag.)

This reimagined way of organizing open tabs was one of the key features in The Browser Company’s first alternative browser, Arc, and is now present in its AI browser, Dia. By adding this feature and others, Google hopes to give Chrome users fewer reasons to switch.