Google brings Gemini in Chrome to India, Canada, and New Zealand

Google announced Wednesday that it is bringing its Gemini AI chatbot integration for the Chrome web browser to India, Canada, and New Zealand. The rollout allows desktop users in these countries to access Gemini through a sidebar, enabling them to ask questions about on-screen content, summarize information, or create quizzes to understand a topic. The integration also allows Gemini to work across tabs, meaning users can mention multiple tabs to get an answer, helping them compare items when shopping or buying tickets for a trip. Additionally, Gemini can connect with other Google applications to provide contextual answers and perform tasks directly from the sidebar. These integrated applications include:

• Gmail
• Keep
• Drive
• YouTube
• Maps
• Calendar

Through these integrations, users can perform actions like composing an email in the sidebar and sending it without leaving the window, or asking Gemini to summarize a YouTube video and list the main points alongside timestamp markers. Users can also retrieve information from Keep or Drive directly within the sidebar, and the assistant can schedule meetings or brief users about their day using Calendar. Beyond text-based queries, users can use the Nano Banana 2 generative AI tool directly within Gemini for Chrome to transform images. For instance, a user can upload a photo of a room while buying furniture and ask the assistant to transform the image to see how an item would look in the room.

The geographic expansion follows a phased rollout of the tool. Google first introduced Gemini in Chrome in the U.S. last September through a floating window, which let users ask the chatbot questions about content on their screen. The company then introduced sidebar-based Gemini tools earlier this year. However, Google is keeping agentic capabilities out of the latest expansion for users in India, New Zealand, and Canada. These agentic capabilities—defined as AI features that can take over browser tasks and complete them on behalf of the user—were launched in January for U.S. users.

Why it matters

Google is scaling its AI-powered browser experience to key international markets, but the feature set remains tiered. The decision to exclude agentic capabilities from the rollout in India, Canada, and New Zealand keeps these browser-automation features restricted to the U.S. market.