Google launches Skills, repeatable AI prompts users can run in Chrome with a keyboard shortcut; users can set up their own Skills or choose from 50+ presets

What Skills are

Google has rolled out "Skills" in Chrome — repeatable AI prompts you can trigger with a keyboard shortcut. It has been reported that Skills live in the Gemini sidebar and come as both user-created scripts and a library of more than 50 presets. Want to maximize protein in a recipe, summarize a YouTube video, or evaluate a job listing with one keystroke? There’s a preset for that. Quick, handy, and a little bit spooky if you prefer your browser dumb.

How to use it

To run a Skill, open the Gemini sidebar by clicking the “Ask Gemini” sparkle icon in the upper-right corner of Chrome, then type a forward slash in the prompt box and pick the Skill you want. Gemini will analyze any tabs you’ve shared and run the Skill’s instructions — for example, Google’s “Protein Maximizer” prompts Gemini to identify ingredients, estimate protein per item, and suggest swaps that boost protein while preserving flavor. Neat. Saves clicks. Feels a bit like giving your browser a Swiss Army knife.

Control, context and competition

Not into omnipresent assistants? You can remove the Ask Gemini button via Settings → AI Innovations → Gemini in Chrome; toggle it off and the button disappears. It has been reported that reviewers expect some teething problems at launch — glitches and gradual improvements over the coming months — and that Google has previously experimented with letting generative AI click and browse on users’ behalf; it has been reported that the company later reshuffled teams to refocus those efforts. Opera’s Neon browser already offers a similar feature called Cards, so Google isn’t inventing a new category so much as throwing its weight behind it. Productivity nerds will love this. Most users? They may never notice.

Sources: wired.com