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Ai Ai Ai. No not the Vanessa da Mata song—it’s the theme for tech in 2024. Last week, Microsoft announced new Surface laptops with artificial intelligence capabilities, and several PC manufacturers like Samsung, Asus, and Acer are launching new Windows machines to take advantage of the AI bump. Early in May, Google showed off its latest AI capabilities at the company's developer conference. Many of these are coming to Android phones soon, and you can expect to hear the word “AI” thrown around for iOS and iPadOS at Apple’s own developer conference next month.
Naturally, all this activity means that Chromebooks are due for their AI upgrade. Google is bringing Gemini, its artificial intelligence chatbot, to Chromebook Plus laptops new and old.
Last year, Google introduced a new standard called Chromebook Plus, and it's this moniker that denotes ChromeOS laptops that meet the specific hardware requirements to run the AI features. (Chromebook Plus machines typically cost more than $350.) The company is now offering new Chromebook Plus owners free 12 months of the Google One AI Premium plan, which includes Gemini Advanced. This top-tier large language model is more capable than the free version. A handful of Chromebook makers are coming out with new machines this spring and later in the year too, many of which will be equipped to hop on the AI bandwagon.
Here are a few of the top new features coming to ChromeOS.
Google AI Comes to ChromeOS
Many of these features are exclusive to Chromebook Plus laptops, which have specific RAM and processor requirements to ensure a specific level of performance. I'm currently typing this story on the new HP Chromebook Plus x360, powered by an Intel Core i3 chipset, and with more than 20 tabs open, everything is running smoothly.
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The first notable feature is Help Me Write, which works in any text box. Select text in any text box and right-click—you'll see a box next to the standard right-click context menu. You can ask Google's AI to rewrite the selected text, rephrase it in a specific way, or change the tone. I tried to use it on a few sentences in this story but did not like any of the suggestions it gave me, so your mileage may vary. Or maybe I'm a better writer than Google's AI. Who knows?
Google's bringing the same generative AI wallpaper system you'll find in Android to ChromeOS. You can access this feature in ChromeOS's wallpaper settings and generate images based on specific parameters. Weirdly, you can create these when you're in a video-calling app too. You'll see a menu option next to the system tray whenever the microphone and video camera are being accessed—tap on it and click “Create with AI” and you can generate an image for your video call's background. I'm not sure why I'd want a background of a “surreal bicycle made of flowers in pink and purple,” but there you go. AI!
Here's something a little more useful: Magic Editor in Google Photos. Yep, the same feature that debuted in Google's Pixel 8 smartphones is now available on Chromebook Plus laptops. In the Google Photos app, you can press Edit on a photo and you'll see the option for Magic Editor. (You'll need to download more editing tools to get started.) This feature lets you erase unwanted objects in your photos, move a subject to another area of the frame, and fill in the backgrounds of photos. I successfully erased a paint can in the background of a photo of my dog, and it worked pretty quickly.
Then there's Gemini. It's available as a stand-alone app, and you can ask it to do pretty much anything. Write a cover letter, break down complex topics, ask for travel tips for a specific country. Just, you know, double-check the results and make sure there aren't any hallucinations. If you want to tap into Google's Gemini Advanced model, the company says it is offering 12 months free for new Chromebook Plus owners through the end of the year, so you have some time to redeem that offer. This is technically an upgrade from Google One, and it nets you Gemini for Workspace, 2 terabytes of storage, and a few other perks.
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New and Upcoming Features
Don't own a Chromebook Plus? Don't worry, there are still a few new features coming to all Chromebooks. For starters, Google says you can now set up a Chromebook with your Android phone just by scanning a QR code—this will share the Wi-Fi credentials stored on your phone with the PC so you don't have to dig up the password if you don't remember it.
Google Tasks, the company's task-management app, is now directly integrated into ChromeOS's system tray. Tap on the date, and above the calendar will be a Google Tasks widget that lets you see current tasks, allowing you to clear them or add new ones. Other new features include a Game Dashboard, which lets you map controls and record gameplay with voice-over, and the built-in screen recorder tool now lets you save recordings as GIFs.
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There are a couple of upcoming features I got to demo at a media-only Chromebook event last week, most notably Hands-Free Control. This employs Project Gameface, an open source accessibility tool for Android that Google announced at its developer conference. It lets gamers use their face as a mouse, controlling the cursor with face gestures and head movements. I watched as someone navigated ChromeOS with their head and face, rotating their head slightly to move the mouse to exit browser tabs, move the cursor to text boxes, and then use voice to type. Google says this accessibility feature will be coming to Chromebooks soon.
In addition, there will be a new Help Me Read feature that gets a little help from Gemini, where you can ask the chatbot to summarize websites or PDFs with a right click. You can also ask follow-up questions through the traditional chat interface. For example, in a demo, the user asked Gemini to summarize a Wikipedia page before asking pointed questions about the topic to glean more information, without having to scroll or hunt for the information themselves.
Also, there will be a new Overview screen whenever you open your Chromebook that shows what you had open across browser windows, tabs, and apps, plus suggestions for sharing content to your other devices too, meaning you can continue reading that news story after you switch from your phone to your laptop.
New PCs
Here's the list of new Chromebooks that are either available now or are coming soon. Not all of them are Chromebook Plus models, which are the only ones that can take advantage of the new AI features.
Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 ($699)Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE ($649)Asus Expertbook CX54 Chromebook Plus ($800)Asus Chromebook CM3001DM2A ($300)Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 ($499)HP Chromebook 14a ($249)HP Chromebook Plus 14 ($449)HP Chromebook Plus x360 ($499)
