Google’s Jarvis AI can shop for you, book flights, and surf the web in Chrome
Google is developing Project Jarvis, a new AI agent that surfs the web for you, taking the phrase “Let me Google that for you” quite literally.
The rumor comes courtesy of The information reporting that “three people with direct knowledge of the product” expect the new computerized AI to be demonstrated as early as December “alongside the release of its next flagship, the Gemini large language model, which would help power the product.”
Imagine asking Google Chrome to search the web and book a vacation for you so Jarvis AI can take over as an automated personal assistant to complete tasks – it’s wild, almost like the internet- equivalent of the self-driving car.
Jarvis AI is very similar to Anthropic’s recently announced improvements for Claude AI, allowing the model to take control of your computer to browse the web, launch applications, and even use your mouse and keyboard. Imagine that, but specifically limited to Google Chrome.
The Information report also claims that Google’s AI agent “can respond to a person’s commands by regularly taking screenshots of what’s on their computer screen, and interpreting the recordings before taking actions such as clicking a button or type in a text field.”
While we could see Jarvis AI by the end of the year, the insiders who spoke to The Information claim it could be released to only a small group of early testers before a major rollout. As it stands now: “The agent is currently working relatively slowly because the model has to think for a few seconds before taking an action.”
Are we ready for AI agents?
AI agents, like Google’s Jarvis, are systems that can perform tasks without human supervision, whether it’s controlling a computer or simply marking emails as read. Most of the major players in AI are trying to launch AI agents that can help individual users and companies facilitate everyday computing tasks, but at this stage most are still just experiments.
What do you think about AI surfing the web for you? I suspect the general consensus is that we don’t entirely trust AI models to perform tasks without fear of hallucinations. That said, if these rumors are true, we’ll see in a few months exactly what Google is planning, and whether it can convince the average consumer that it’s time we let AI take control of our web searches.