Chromebooks’ Turn to Receive an AI Infusion

TFD – New Chromebooks for 2024 are hitting the market, featuring advanced AI capabilities. Discover how Chromebook Plus models stand out with exclusive features and updates. Get ready for an enhanced computing experience with the latest AI-powered Chromebooks.

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.

It goes without saying that with all of this activity, Chromebooks need an AI update. Google is now supporting both older and newer Chromebook Plus devices with its AI chatbot, Gemini.

Chromebook Plus, a new standard that Google unveiled last year, is the name given to ChromeOS laptops that satisfy the necessary hardware requirements to operate the AI features. (Chromebook Plus computers generally run within the $350 range.) The company is now offering new Chromebook Plus owners free 12 months of the Google One AI Premium plan, which includes Gemini Advanced. Compared to the free version, this superior large language model is more powerful. 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.

These are some of the most anticipated new features for ChromeOS.

Many of these functions are only available on Chromebook Plus laptops, which have particular processor and RAM specifications in order to guarantee a particular degree of performance. With almost 20 tabs open, my new HP Chromebook Plus x360, powered by an Intel Core i3 processor, is performing flawlessly as I type this post.

Help Me Write is the first noteworthy feature; it functions in any text box. When you choose text in any text box and perform a right-click, a box will appear next to the usual context menu. You can request that Google’s AI tweak the text you’ve chosen, reword it in a particular way, or adjust the tone. Your mileage may vary because I tried using it on a couple sentences in my article and did not like any of the ideas it made. Or maybe I’m a better writer than Google’s AI. Who knows?

Google is adding to ChromeOS the same generative AI wallpaper engine that is available on Android. You can produce graphics depending on particular factors by accessing this functionality through the wallpaper settings in ChromeOS. Strangely, you can even make these while using a video-calling program. When the microphone and video camera are being used, a menu item will appear next to the system tray. Tap on it, select “Create with AI,” and you may create a background image for your video conversation. 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: Google Photos’ Magic Editor. Yes, Chromebook Plus laptops now have access to the same feature that was first seen in Google’s Pixel 8 smartphones. 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.

Next up is Gemini. You may ask it to do almost anything with this stand-alone application. Compose a cover letter, explain difficult subjects, and inquire about country-specific travel advice. Just be sure there are no hallucinations by double-checking the results. You still have time to take advantage of Google’s Gemini Advanced model, as the company is currently offering new Chromebook Plus owners 12 months free of charge until the end of the year. In theory, this is an improvement above Google One as it comes with two terabytes of storage, Gemini for Workspace, and a few other benefits.

Not a Chromebook Plus owner? Rest assured, a few additional features will soon be available on all Chromebooks. First off, according to Google, you can now pair your Android phone and Chromebook simply by scanning a QR code. This allows the PC to access the Wi-Fi credentials stored on your phone, saving you the trouble of retrieving the password in case you forget 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.

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 makes use of Project Gameface, an Android accessibility tool made available under open source that Google unveiled during its developer conference. With it, players can move their heads and make facial motions to control the cursor. 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.

Furthermore, a new feature called Help Me Read—which uses some assistance from Gemini—will allow you to ask the chatbot to summarize webpages or PDFs with a single right-click. Inquiries about follow-up can also be made using the standard chat interface. In a demonstration, for instance, the user requested that Gemini summarize a Wikipedia page before posing focused questions to extract further information without requiring them to navigate through the page or look it up themselves.

When you open your Chromebook, a new Overview screen will appear. This screen displays the tabs, apps, and browser windows you have open, along with recommendations for sharing content to other devices. This means you can carry on reading that news story when you move from your phone to your laptop.

The list of new Chromebooks that are currently on sale or will be available soon may be found below. Not every one of them is a Chromebook Plus, which is the only model that has access to the new AI capabilities.