Chrome’s New AI Feature Will Enable Quieter Permission Notifications

Google keeps moving forward on its goal of deeply integrating artificial intelligence into its products. Currently, hardware—such as the Google Pixel phones—and software—such as the Workspace suite and Google Chrome—from the company already use the technology to enable impressive features. In line with that, Google Chrome will receive an AI-powered option that will intelligently manage the intensity of permission notifications.

There are websites that, for one reason or another, request certain permissions. Sometimes they are necessary to enable features, although you also have to be careful with malicious sites that only want to steal your data—or worse. These permissions include location, notifications, microphone, and camera, among others. Pop-ups that ask for these kinds of permissions can be annoying or disruptive. That said, Google has come up with an AI-powered solution.

This AI feature will learn your browsing habits to send quieter permission notifications in Chrome

AI-based developments are mainly based on “learning” through data collection and processing. So, it stands to reason that these kinds of features are especially suited to detecting and learning use patterns. With that in mind, the Chrome team is working on the “PermissionsAI” option.

PermissionsAI is a feature that analyzes your browsing behaviors or habits to determine how likely you are to grant certain permissions to a particular website. If it detects a low chance of granting a certain permission, the request notification will be “silent” or much more discreet. This enables a smoother browsing experience by removing disruptive elements that you were going to dismiss anyway.

The feature works thanks to the “Permission Predictions Service” and the “Gemini Nano v2” SLM built into Chrome. It needs to have ‘Safe Browsing’ enabled to protect all your browsing data.

Feature still under development with no rollout date yet

While PermissionsAI is still in development, you can already test an early version in Chrome Canary. “Use the Permission Predictions Service and Gemini Nano v2 to surface permission requests using a quieter UI when the likelihood of the user granting the permission is predicted to be low. Requires safe browsing to be enabled,” reads its description.

There are no details yet on when the option will arrive in the stable version of Chrome for everyone. Hopefully it won’t take too long, as it seems pretty convenient.