Anthropic launches a Claude AI agent for Chrome

Anthropic is launching a research preview of a browser-based AI agent powered by its Claude AI models. The agent, Claude for Chrome, is rolling out to a group of 1,000 subscribers on Anthropic’s Max plan, while also opening a waitlist for other interested users.

By adding an extension to Chrome, select users can now chat with Claude in a sidecar window that maintains context of everything happening in their browser. Users can also give the Claude agent permission to take actions in their browser and complete some tasks on their behalf.

The rise of the Browser as the AI battleground

The browser is quickly becoming the next battleground for AI labs, which aim to use browser integrations to offer more seamless connections between AI systems and their users.

For instance, Perplexity recently launched its own browser, Comet, which features an AI agent that can offload tasks for users. OpenAI is reportedly close to launching its own AI-powered browser, which is rumored to have similar features to Comet.

Meanwhile, Google has launched Gemini integrations with Chrome in recent months.

However, there is a dark side to it too.

In the Tuesday blog post, Anthropic warned that the rise of AI agents with browser access poses new safety risks. The company has already introduced several defenses against prompt injection attacks. The company says its interventions has now reduced the success rate of prompt injection attacks from 23.6% to 11.2%.