ChatGPT's Chrome extension now looks across your tabs and takes over tasks — computer use reaches 7M users

#What happened

On October 15, 2026, OpenAI announced via posts on its official ChatGPT X account that the ChatGPT Chrome extension now brings computer use to Chrome:

• In Chat, the assistant can look across a user's open browser tabs to gather information and make answers more useful.
• In Work (OpenAI's agent for longer, more involved tasks), ChatGPT can take control of Chrome tabs to complete tasks such as sending messages, filling out forms, and downloading files. It can also organize and group open tabs.
• Using ChatGPT within a Chrome tab got a major upgrade: a user's entire ChatGPT history is now present inside the browser tab, with Chat and Work available side by side with the site they are on.
• The extension's Chrome Web Store listing (offered by OpenAI) shows version 1.26.1005.11759, updated October 15, 2026, and reports 7,000,000 users. Available for all ChatGPT plans.
• Sample uses OpenAI listed: comparing three couches open in separate tabs by dimensions, material, delivery time, and return policy; using an event brief to fill out a registration form while stopping before submission; filling out a dentist form while adding the appointment to calendars.
• Setup runs through the Computer Use section of the desktop app's settings; the extension also works with Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi.
• Permissions: by default ChatGPT asks before interacting with each new website (Allow once, Allow for this site, Allow for all sites, or Decline); history access is scoped to the individual request, with no always-allow option.

#Why it matters

This pushes computer use — previously tied to Dots, the Agents API, and the desktop — into the browser most people actually use. For Dots users, tabs become a shared workspace: a dot's work can now extend into the tabs a user has open, with Chat and Work side by side with the page. The default per-site permission prompt and request-scoped history access address the privacy questions that have followed agent browser control, but 7 million users is a large surface for this behavior to land on at once.