Claude in Chrome adds cross-device session continuity

The wall between browser and app disappears

Anthropic announced on August 12 that conversations held in its Chrome extension "Claude in Chrome" can now continue seamlessly in desktop, web, and mobile versions of Claude. Until now, work done with Claude in the browser stayed locked to that session — but now, closing the laptop and opening the conversation on a smartphone no longer breaks the context.

It's not just the conversation content that carries over. Skills (custom procedures for automating repetitive tasks) and connectors (features linking to external services) set up in the browser continue to function as well. Anthropic stated, "Your skills and connectors work in the browser too."

A demonstrated use case

The images Anthropic released alongside the announcement showed a specific demo scenario. When a user requested, "Do the month-end close with these tabs. Pull each invoice and put it into the monthly report," the screen showed Claude checking the open tabs and identifying the items needed for the spreadsheet. The browser had tabs open simultaneously from different vendors — insurance, telecom, and cleaning services — and Claude moved between the tabs, extracting amounts and line items to complete the task.

This illustrates that Claude in Chrome is being used not merely as a search assistant, but as an office automation tool that consolidates information scattered across multiple web tabs into a single document.

Who gets access first

Plan	Rollout timing
Max	Immediate (from August 12)
Team	Immediate (from August 12)
Pro	Phased rollout over coming weeks

The announcement made no mention of the free plan.

How to use it

① Where to start — Opening the Claude in Chrome extension installed in the Chrome browser brings up a chat panel on the right side. It appears that session syncing applies automatically without extra setup, as long as the user is logged in with a Max or Team account.

② Step-by-step usage

1. Open the tabs you want to work with in Chrome (for example, several sites containing invoices).
2. Click the Claude in Chrome icon to open the chat panel.
3. Type your request as a sentence — for example, "Pull the invoice amounts from these tabs and organize them into a table."
4. As Claude moves between tabs to complete the task, you can track progress through the status display.
5. Afterward, close the laptop and open the same conversation on the desktop or mobile app — the prior content and results will still be there, continuing seamlessly.

③ Who can use it — Max and Team plan users can use the feature immediately as of the announcement, while Pro users will get phased access over the coming weeks.

④ What you can try — For example, users can consolidate invoices scattered across multiple vendor sites into a single closing report, or organize research done in the browser and continue reviewing it later on a smartphone while on the move.

The agent race spreads to the browser

This update follows the same trajectory as a series of recent agent-related enhancements from Anthropic. On August 9, Claude's Managed Agents gained budget caps and an advisor model feature, and on August 10, the auto mode in the coding tool Claude Code became the default for Pro, Max, and Team accounts. Anthropic has been steadily expanding the scope of automation that proceeds without human approval.

Rival Google is aiming in a similar direction. Gemini Spark, expanded on July 30, bills itself as a 24-hour personal agent that uses Chrome's autonomous browsing feature to handle browser tasks on the user's behalf. Both companies are simultaneously pursuing efforts to carry tasks started in the browser across devices — and eventually, without human intervention at all.

So what actually changes

Until now, browser extensions often lost their context the moment the window was closed. With this change, Claude users can pick up research or organizing work started in Chrome on a work computer and continue it on a smartphone during the commute or on a home desktop, without having to explain everything from scratch again. The impact is likely to be most noticeable in repetitive office tasks that involve consolidating information scattered across multiple web tabs — such as organizing invoices or compiling data. However, since the feature is still limited to the Max and Team plans, when it expands to the Pro plan — used by the majority of individual users — will be the next indicator of its real-world impact.