5 Cool New Google Chrome Features Released in 2026

It’s been a huge year for Google Chrome in 2025, especially with the launch of one of its biggest features yet: Gemini in Chrome. This turned Gemini into a clickable button right in the interface, giving you faster access to the Google AI chatbot. AI mode – an AI-powered search bar – was also brought to Chrome in 2025, along with other handy Chrome features such as improved autofill to automatically fill forms with vehicle details, passport and other personal information.

While these features are already impressive additions, Google is far from finished upgrading its browser. New features will be added to Chrome this year. In fact, a few nifty tools have already been rolled out to make your overall browsing experience much smoother. These include some quality of life improvements, such as a full-page reading mode and the functionality to save PDFs directly to Drive from the PDF viewer. Additionally, some features make it easier to integrate AI into your browsing routine. If you haven’t yet thought about updating to the latest version of the software, here are five of the Chrome 2026 features that might just change your mind.

What makes Chrome a handy tool is that it is not only used for viewing web pages, but also for opening PDFs. Whenever you find a PDF online, you can open it in a separate tab on Chrome, so you won’t need to switch between two different apps. But if you want to access that same file on another device, you normally need to download it to your computer first and then upload it to Google Drive. Only then can you view it on your phone or on a separate computer.

To simplify this process, Google recently integrated a Save to Drive button into its PDF viewer. It only takes a few clicks to save the PDF to your Drive, and you won’t even leave Chrome’s PDF viewer. However, Save to Drive isn’t available if you open your PDF with a Guest profile or in incognito mode, so make sure you’re signed in and browsing in a normal tab.

To start saving your PDFs directly to Google Drive, open the PDF in Chrome and click the Drive icon in the upper right corner. If you have multiple Google accounts, you will be prompted to choose one. If the Google account you want to use is not registered in Chrome, you can go to Use another account and sign in to that account. Once you have selected an account, tap Save and wait for the download to complete. A pop-up window will appear once the operation is successful. You can then continue reading the PDF in Chrome or choose to check the saved PDF in Drive. Any PDFs you saved using this method will be downloaded to a new folder in Drive named Saved from Chrome.

Reading mode, which helps you focus on reading a web page, has been a feature of Chrome since forever. However, it’s not as useful as you’d hope. Of course, this declutters the page and displays only the relevant text. But the annoying thing is that it only opens into a small side panel on the right. The distracting web page is still visible. To get full-page reading mode, you will need to use some Chrome extensions.

Well, this year you won’t need it. One of the features of Chrome 2026 is a new and improved reading mode that now gives you a full-page reading experience. It’s accessed via the old-fashioned route: right-click on a web page and select “Open in Reading Mode” or tap the three dots in the top right, go to More Tools and tap Reading Mode. But instead of the web page opening in a side panel, it automatically goes full screen. You still get the old customization settings, such as narration, text size, and page color theme, but there’s an additional new tool to disable and enable images (in case they’re essential to what you’re reading). You’ll also find a setting to display reading mode in the side panel if you prefer.

In addition to the full-screen display and additional tools, the interface of the new reading mode has also been slightly modified. It now keeps the interface as clean as possible by removing the toolbar at the top. It is replaced only by reading control and text size. To change other Reading Mode settings, you must first open the gear icon.

Since using Chrome, tabs have always been displayed at the very top of the screen. This isn’t usually a problem, but if you’re like many others who have fifteen tabs open at the same time, it becomes more difficult to find the one you want to access since the page titles are all truncated. This constant clutter of different website names and icons can also become annoying at some point. Plus, they take up a lot of your screen real estate that could have been used for more productive tasks. Fortunately, Google came up with a solution rolling out to Chrome this year.

Called Vertical Tabs, this new feature switches your tab strip from the standard horizontal layout to a vertical list on the left of the screen. This list view allows you to read most, if not all, of the page titles for easier navigation. It also gives you more height and width to work with. Since the tabs move to the left, your current tab can freely occupy the entire height of the screen. You can also get most of the width out of your screen, thanks to the fact that you can collapse the side panel. This leaves you with just the icons, which are still clickable to avoid interrupting your workflow. If the reduced view isn’t to your liking, the side panel can actually be adjusted to your preferred width.

Another great feature of vertical tabs is the search bar. From there, you can search and access all active tabs in all your Chrome windows. It also lists some of your recently closed tabs. To enable vertical tabs, simply find an empty space next to the last tab in your tab strip, right-click it, and go to Show Tabs Vertically.

Since Gemini launched in Chrome last year, users have found all kinds of reasons to start using this built-in Chrome assistant. But the thing is, as it becomes part of your browsing routine, you’ll end up using the same prompt in many different cases: perhaps you’re always asking Gemini to summarize web pages or compare products in your shopping cart. Having to constantly type the same prompt can get boring over time, especially when it’s very long and detailed. This is where skills come to your rescue. This new Chrome feature saves your favorite prompts directly to Gemini in Chrome for easy access later.

To add a new skill, click the Ask Gemini icon. Type / in the chat box and go to Add Skill. Next, fill out the necessary details in the form that appears: enter a name for the skill in the Name field and your entire prompt in the Instructions field. You can choose to enhance the instructions using Gemini, or keep them as is and press Save. Besides custom skills, there are also predefined skills that you can add to Chrome. In the Gemini chatbot, type / again and choose Browse Skills. Simply scroll through the available skills and once you find the one you need, tap Add.

When you’re ready to use the skills, all you have to do is open Gemini in Chrome directly on the web page where you need it, type / in the chat box, and select your skill from the list. It should work as if you had typed the entire prompt yourself. When you want to edit a saved skill, tap / and hover over the skill you need. A pen icon should appear to open the form for editing.

If you already use Gemini to search for information, like what the best shampoo for frizzy hair is or how the Artemis program is supposed to work, you’ll appreciate AI mode in Chrome. AI Mode is designed to work like Gemini, but instead of opening a new tab and visiting the website, AI Mode lets you type your complex search query directly into Chrome’s search bar. This isn’t actually a new feature since it rolled out to Chrome in 2025. But this year, it was upgraded to fix one of its glaring issues.

Previously, whenever you used AI mode, the conversation would stay in one tab while links you clicked from the AI ​​mode response opened in another tab. This means that if you want to continue the conversation, you will have to switch between tabs. This can be distracting and ineffective in every way. So, to streamline your workflow, Google has launched a side-by-side feature for AI mode.

Now, when you click on a link mentioned in AI Mode’s answer, the web page is only open to about two-thirds of the screen. Your AI mode conversation takes up the rest of the screen, so you’ll see both AI mode and the web page. From there, you can start reading the web page normally. If you have additional questions related to your initial query, simply jump to the left sidebar to ask the AI ​​Mode question.