Google Now Comes to Chrome in New Experimental Release

If you’re okay with living on the bleeding edge of software, Google has a surprise for you – starting today, you can download a new alpha build of Chrome – dubbed Google Chrome Canary – that comes complete with Google Now, the company’s intelligent personal assistant system that’s shipped on Android devices since the release of Android 4.1 in 2012.

Now works similarly on Chrome as it always has on Android – the system will show you relevant-to-you information such as weather report, sports scores, event reminders, traffic reports, and stocks in little “cards” that live in Chrome’s Notification center. As of now Google Now for Chrome doesn’t support the full selection of cards currently available for Android users, however we assume that Chrome will see regular updates in order to bring a wider range of functionality to the system.

If interested, you’ll need to go out of your way to download Chrome Canary from Google – your existing installation of Chrome likely won’t receive this functionality for quite some time as Google works to further develop the feature. Once Chrome Canary is installed, you must manually activate Now by typing “chrome://flags/#enable-google-now” into Chrome’s address bar and relaunch the browser. Once that’s complete, you’re done – Google Now is activated, and you’ll be able to see your cards right alongside your other notifications.

Google Now support has yet to be officially acknowledged in a statement or announcement by Google, however the company has quietly added a support page on their Chrome Help site with more information on the new functionality.