Building an AI-Powered Chrome Extension

Ever had 50+ tabs open and couldn't find anything? I built an AI-powered Chrome extension that automatically groups your tabs by content similarity. Here's how.

The Problem

Modern web browsing is chaotic. We open tabs for research, entertainment, work, and shopping - all mixed together. Manual organization takes time and mental energy.

The Solution: AI Tab Grouping

My extension analyzes tab titles and URLs, then uses an LLM to categorize them into meaningful groups like:

• 🤖 AI Tools
• 📰 News & Articles
• 📚 Documentation
• 🎬 Entertainment
• 🛒 Shopping

Technical Implementation

1. Chrome Extension Architecture

// manifest.json
{
  "manifest_version": 3,
  "name": "Auto Tab Grouper",
  "permissions": ["tabs", "tabGroups"],
  "action": {
    "default_popup": "popup.html"
  }
}

2. Tab Analysis

async function analyzeTabs() {
  const tabs = await chrome.tabs.query({});
  const tabData = tabs.map((tab) => ({
    id: tab.id,
    title: tab.title,
    url: new URL(tab.url).hostname,
  }));

  return tabData;
}

3. LLM Integration

The magic happens in the prompt engineering:

const prompt = `
Analyze these browser tabs and group them into 5-7 semantic categories.
Consider the content type, purpose, and user intent.

Tabs: ${JSON.stringify(tabData)}

Return JSON with categories and tab IDs.
`;

Key Challenges

1. API Rate Limits

Solution: Batch processing and intelligent caching

2. Privacy Concerns

Solution: Local processing where possible, minimal data sent to LLM

3. Performance

Solution: Async processing with loading states

Results

Users report:

• 80% faster tab navigation
• Reduced cognitive load
• Better browsing focus

Chrome Web Store Journey

The review process taught me about:

• Privacy policy requirements
• Permission justification
• User data handling

What's Next?

Planning to add:

• Custom category creation
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Tab session saving

The extension is open source on GitHub. Contributions welcome!

Have ideas for browser productivity tools? Let's discuss!