The AI sphere was rather quiet, dull and boring. It rarely made ripples that disrupt the global industry.
But since OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, things changed. Tech companies began competing in an arms race that sooner than later, the technology can seemingly decimate those that didn't jump into the bandwagon and piggyback the trend.
Google is a tech giant, and it also jumped into the hype, and its solution is called 'Gemini,' an AI it hopes can dethrone OpenAI's GPT-4.
Fortunately for Google, it's sitting on huge resources, and playing catch up is possible.
What's more, Google also has the world's most-popular web browser, the Google Chrome, which it can utilize to make Gemini even more competitive.
Chrome has what it calls the Omnibox shortcut feature.
What it does, is allowing users to type '@' in Chrome’s address bar, followed by the name of the shortcut.
First introduced in 2022, it's meant to be a faster way to search.
This time, Google has added a dedicated Gemini @gemini shortcut for the web browser, on top of the existing @bookmarks, @history, and @tabs shortcuts..
This allows users to simply type in their question/request to Chrome to use Gemini.
It's worth noting that the shortcuts are only available on Chrome for desktop, not mobile, and do not work in the New Tab Page search bar.
Quickly start your chat with Gemini using the new shortcut in the Chrome desktop address bar
Step 1: Type “@” in the desktop address bar and select Chat with Gemini
Step 2: Write your prompt
Step 3: Get your response on https://t.co/MukYC54K9e
Seriously. It’s that easy pic.twitter.com/F7LdcFCc2a— Chrome (@googlechrome) April 30, 2024
To set "Chat with Gemini," users can click, navigate to it using arrow keys, or finish typing "gemini" and then pressing space/tab to add their prompt.
At this time, there are no autocomplete suggestions, and that hitting enter will load gemini.google.com/prompt with users' question/request already filled in.
After using it for a few times, Chrome will automatically change the address bar text from "Chat with Gemini" to just "Gemini."
In order to use this feature, users must update Chrome to version 124.
Read: Google Bard Becomes Gemini, And How Google Plans For A Post-Search Future