Chrome’s Auto Browse Agent: The Gap Between Promise and Reality
AI agents are supposed to be the next big thing. The pitch is simple: tell an AI what you need, and it handles the tedious web work for you. But are we there yet? A hands-on test of Google’s new Auto Browse agent reveals a sobering truth about the current state of browser automation.
The Core Insight
Google has embedded an AI agent directly into Chrome—the world’s most popular browser. Called “Auto Browse,” this feature promises to navigate the web and complete tasks on your behalf. The potential reach is enormous. But testing across diverse real-world scenarios reveals a technology that’s impressive in flashes yet fundamentally unreliable.
The most damning finding? Auto Browse struggles with Google’s own products. It couldn’t properly search Gmail, failed to enter data correctly in Google Sheets, and was completely baffled by YouTube Music’s interface. When your AI agent can’t use your own company’s tools, something has gone wrong in the development process.
Why This Matters
Browser agents represent a critical frontier in AI development. Unlike chatbots that just talk, agents actually do things. They click buttons, fill forms, and navigate complex workflows. The promise is transformative: imagine delegating hours of tedious web tasks to an AI assistant.
But this test exposes a fundamental problem with current AI agents: they require constant supervision. As the tester noted, “you have to watch it.” The agent frequently needs re-prompting, gets confused by standard UI patterns, and aborts tasks unexpectedly. This isn’t automation—it’s babysitting a robot.
The inconsistency is particularly troubling. Running the same task twice can produce completely different results. On one attempt, the agent got stuck in a loop trying to access a hover menu. On the next run, it figured out to use a list view instead. This unpredictability makes it impossible to trust the agent with anything important.
Key Takeaways
The good: Auto Browse can handle straightforward navigation tasks reasonably well. Finding a power plan, playing simple games, and creating basic websites all worked (mostly).
The bad: Complex multi-step tasks frequently fail. Email scanning returned incorrect data. Spreadsheet entry was broken. Time-based monitoring is completely unsupported.
The ugly: Google’s own products are among the worst-performing targets. YouTube Music, Gmail, and Sheets all caused significant problems.
The real issue: Every browser agent test reveals the same pattern—they can’t be trusted to work autonomously. Constant human oversight defeats the entire purpose.
Looking Ahead
We’re at an awkward middle stage of AI agent development. The technology is impressive enough to demonstrate real potential, but not reliable enough for practical daily use. The median score of 7/10 across tests sounds reasonable until you realize that “7/10” in autonomous systems often means “will probably fail in production.”
The path forward likely requires several advances: better understanding of web UI patterns, improved error recovery, and crucially, the ability to maintain focus on long-running tasks. Until agents can truly operate independently without constant babysitting, the “auto” in Auto Browse remains more aspiration than reality.
For now, the best use case might be watching the agent work as a learning exercise—seeing how it approaches problems can be educational. But if you’re hoping to delegate your tedious web tasks and walk away? Keep waiting. We’re not there yet.
Based on analysis of “We let Chrome’s Auto Browse agent surf the web for us—here’s what happened” (Ars Technica, 2026)