New Tab to AI Chat

What it does

New Tab to AI Chat is a Chrome extension that replaces the new tab page with the AI assistant you use every day: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or any website you choose. Press ⌘T (Mac) or CtrlT (Windows, Linux, ChromeOS) and your chat is there, signed in, ready for a question.

Unlike other "new tab" extensions, it keeps the keyboard cursor in the address bar. If you wanted a Google search or a website instead, just type as usual: nothing changes about how you browse, you simply gain a chat window in every new tab.

Why it's useful

The new tab is the fastest way into the browser: people open dozens every day. Making it an AI chat turns "I'll ask ChatGPT later" into a two-second habit, without giving up anything:

• Chrome no longer lets you choose a new tab URL. The setting was removed; only enterprise-managed devices can set one through a policy. An extension is the only way for everyone else.
• Redirect extensions steal the cursor. They send the tab to the site, which takes the keyboard focus: you can't just type a search anymore, you need an extra click or ⌘L every time.
• "AI new tab" dashboards aren't your real assistant. They wrap a model in their own interface, often with an API key, ads or tracking, and without your conversations, projects or settings.
• Side panels and desktop apps are one more step. They're great, but they're not where your hands already are when you open a tab.

Use cases

• Quick questions while browsing: definitions, conversions, "how do I…", without leaving your flow.
• Writing: draft an email, rephrase a paragraph, translate a message.
• Coding: paste an error, ask for a snippet, review a function.
• Research and learning: summarize, compare, explain a concept, with Perplexity or Gemini if you prefer search-first answers.
• Voice: open a tab and talk to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini in voice mode.
• A project in every tab: point new tabs at a specific Claude Project or custom GPT that knows your work context.
• Private or self-hosted AI: Open WebUI, LibreChat or any local model interface on http://localhost, or your company's internal chat.
• Switching assistants: use Claude for writing this week, Gemini for research next week, in one click.

Who it's for

People who use an AI assistant many times a day: developers, writers, students, researchers, founders, support and sales teams. Also privacy-minded users who want a small, auditable open-source tool rather than a closed "AI new tab" product, and teams who want every new tab to open their internal AI portal.

How it compares

Supported AI sites

• Built in: Claude (claude.ai), ChatGPT (chatgpt.com), Gemini (gemini.google.com).
• One-click suggestions: Grok (grok.com), Perplexity (perplexity.ai), Le Chat by Mistral (chat.mistral.ai), DeepSeek (chat.deepseek.com), Microsoft Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com).
• Any URL: a specific page (a Claude Project, a custom GPT), another assistant, or a self-hosted chat on your machine or network.

Tested: Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini load inside the new tab, and Grok too (tested signed out). Sites protected by aggressive anti-bot checks can't be verified by automated tests; they load in a regular browser session. A few sites refuse to run inside a frame: for those, turn off "Keep the cursor in the address bar" and the site opens as a regular page.

Browser compatibility

• Google Chrome 145 or later on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS: supported and tested, including an automated end-to-end test suite that runs in Chromium.
• Comet (Perplexity's Chromium browser, version 145): tested with the same automated suite. Everything passes, except that the welcome page doesn't open by itself at install; the settings stay one click away on the toolbar icon.
• Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and other Chromium-based browsers: same engine and the same extension APIs, so the extension is expected to work from version 145, but it hasn't been tested on each of them yet. In Edge, install it from the Chrome Web Store after turning on Allow extensions from other stores, or load it unpacked.
• Not supported: Firefox and Safari (different extension systems), mobile browsers (Chrome on Android and iOS doesn't run extensions), Arc (it opens a command bar instead of a new tab page), and incognito windows (Chrome keeps its own new tab page there).

Customization

• Choose Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or a custom URL from the toolbar icon or the options page.
• Keep the cursor in the address bar (on by default) shows the site inside the new tab. Turn it off to open the site as a regular page instead: the page takes the cursor, but every feature works, including Claude artifact previews and ChatGPT canvas previews.
• Interface in English (default) or French.
• Everything else is code you can change: the extension is a few hundred lines of plain JavaScript, MIT-licensed, with a guide for AI coding agents (AGENTS.md). Fork it, add a provider, change the default.

How it works

1. The extension overrides Chrome's new tab page (Manifest V3, chrome_url_overrides). Chrome focuses the address bar on new tabs, and because the tab never navigates away, nothing takes that focus back.
2. The page reads your choice synchronously from a local cache and immediately loads the chosen site in a full-page frame: no network call and no waiting before the site starts loading.
3. Chat sites normally refuse to be shown inside another page (X-Frame-Options, CSP frame-ancestors). A declarativeNetRequest rule removes those two headers only for the site's frame in a tab whose top-level page is the extension's own new tab. In regular tabs, and when any other website tries to embed these sites, their protection stays intact.
4. Inside that frame, Chrome hides the site's own preference cookies from its JavaScript. For Claude and ChatGPT, the extension makes those readable (cookie consent, sidebar state, signed-in hints), without ever touching session cookies.
5. A small script sends the page title, icon and background color up to the tab, so tabs show your conversation names and the next new tab paints the right color before the site loads.

Privacy and security

No analytics, no tracking, no ads, no remote code, no server: nothing is sent to the developer or to anyone else. Settings are saved in Chrome's storage and synced by Chrome between your own devices. Permissions are limited to claude.ai, chatgpt.com and gemini.google.com, plus the one custom site you pick, if any. Read the full privacy policy, or the source code on GitHub.

Install

1. Chrome Web Store: the listing is in review; the link will appear here.
2. Manually, in two minutes: download the zip from the latest release and unzip it. Open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions), turn on Developer mode, click Load unpacked and select the folder. Pick your assistant on the welcome page.
3. With an AI coding agent: ask Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to "install the Chrome extension from https://github.com/BlaisedEstais/new-tab-to-ai-chat: clone it, read AGENTS.md, then walk me through loading its extension folder".

Sign in once to your AI site in a regular tab: sign-in pages can't load inside another page, and the new tab then uses the same session.