Google has revealed a new AI tool, Project Mariner, that can manage a person’s browser to surf the web like a human, potentially transforming our internet interaction. Known internally as 'Project Jarvis, ' Mariner may be the most significant browser update in 34 years and aims to be part of Google's vision for a universal AI assistant capable of tasks like booking holidays and paying parking fines. Currently in its initial phase, Project Mariner is an experimental extension for Google Chrome. It uses Google's Gemini AI to comprehend screen information and act accordingly by analyzing pixels, images, text, and forms to perform tasks, albeit imperfectly. It's accessible only to selected testers, and Google notes that it's slower and less reliable than a human. In a blog post, Google highlighted Mariner's technical feasibility in browser navigation, recognizing its present limitations but expecting rapid improvements.

The project signifies a paradigm shift in user experience, potentially altering business operations and disrupting industries like advertising by reducing human visits to websites. Project Mariner contributes to a significant update in Google’s AI strategy, focusing on its next-gen AI assistant, Gemini. Launched in December, Gemini is multimodal, able to interpret text, audio, video, and images, and the latest version can generate information through these mediums. It includes specialized AI agents for tasks like holiday planning and coding. Google CEO Sundar Pichai refers to this as AI’s “agentic era, ” aligning with the company's vision of a universal assistant. He emphasized developing models that understand the world better, anticipate, and act on the user's behalf with oversight. Recent reveals also include Jules, an AI for coding support, and Deep Research, a tool for research assistance leveraging advanced reasoning.