Anthropic is testing Claude for Chrome, an AI that can handle your tasks in a browser
Anthropic has announced Claude for Chrome. This is a browser extension that lets the AI take actions on your behalf.
OpenAI debuted its ChatGPT agent in July, and it impressed many users, even passing captcha challenges like a pro.
Anthropic's agentic AI is currently available as a research preview, the company wants to get real-world feedback about its uses, shortcomings, and safety issues. The San Francisco-based company calls Claude for Chrome, a browser-using AI.
It is capable of performing various tasks set by a user, such as reading, clicking and navigating websites, managing calendars, scheduling meetings, drafting email responses, handling expense reports, testing new website features. It can also handle complex tasks like finding an apartment within a specific budget in a neighborhood, finding the right food based on the user's instructions, and more.
Here is a video from Anthropic that demonstrates how Claude for Chrome works, this support page includes more details about the feature.
Anthropic admits that there are some vulnerabilities in Claude for Chrome, and that it will fix them before making the agentic AI available on a wide basis. The announcement highlights how browser-using AIs are prone to prompt injection attacks, i.e., hackers could hide instructions in websites, emails, documents to manipulate the AI into performing harmful actions like deleting files, stealing data, making financial transactions, etc. The user would not be aware of what's happening in the background. The company says that it conducted extensive adversarial prompt injection testing, in 123 test cases, 29 different attack scenarios, and that it resulted in a 23.6% attack success rate.
Claude for Chrome isn't free, it is currently being piloted in the Max plan, which costs $100 per month. The early preview has a limit of 1000 users, and others can join the waitlist to try the feature.
Have you tried an agentic AI?
“It is capable of performing various tasks set by a user, such as reading, clicking and navigating websites, managing calendars, scheduling meetings, drafting email responses, handling expense reports, testing new website features. It can also handle complex tasks like finding an apartment within a specific budget in a neighborhood, finding the right food based on the user’s instructions, and more.”
I am sure some of those task like clicking and navigating websites, managing calendars, scheduling meetings do not require AI. Some summaries can be done with bookmarked free AI services like Duck.ai. Some tasks, like finding an Apartment on the budget, can be done through rental aggregate websites like Appartments.com with all amenities and restrictions listed. I am sure Chrome and Firefox comes with developmental features, and you can use vibe coding if you want it done superfast for free. I am a little bit confused about “finding the right food”? Is it for people who never ate food or can not ask search engine how some ethnic foods taste like? If you are adult you should have some idea which food is right for you, what is junk food and so on.
I have a horrible suspicion that this is a service for people who want to outsource all of their thinking in one bundle payment. Or for people who do not want to use Internet at all. The end is always the same. If you own a car and just not interested in obtaining a basic diagnostic tool and learn how to use it, chances are you are going to pay multiple times more for repairs. Taking shortcuts is really costly. I am not saying that you should not learn how to use AI. But if you only use AI, that’s a problem.
About the “Finding the right food” thing. Well, if you put it like that, it sounds silly. The full sentence says “finding the right food based on the user’s instructions”.
Anthropic’s example showed a user asking Claude to find a restaurant that serves “garlic noodles” and order it for them. So, the AI searched, and “found a Noodles section” on DoorDash, and continued to search for the specific food that the user asked for, i.e. garlic noodles. In this example, it was handled precisely. That’s what I meant by “finding the right food”, with accuracy ;)
Got you, my bet. Tried to read article too fast as always. Personally, I do not use delivery apps and pretty much set in my eating habits. If I want to try something different, I just look up local restaurant menu and do a web search if food contains some ingredients that I do not like or just call about it restaurant directly.
For me, asking AI to select my food sounds alien, but for many people it is normal. I use AI, but I can not imagine outsourcing something like food selection to AI, or outsourcing almost anything that brings pleasure. And food for me is one of the few real pleasures I have right now.
I don’t want an assistant to help with tasks.
Like drain your bank account?