Chrome’s next vertical tab upgrade could change how you organize your browsing

Chrome’s long-awaited vertical tabs only emerged last month and are still in testing, but Google already seems to be thinking bigger. A new experiment suggests Chrome could soon organize your vertical-tab browsing around “projects” instead of just piles of open tabs. You may even be able to keep your AI chats tied to the same workflow.

As spotted by DigitalCitizen.Life, Chrome is testing a new Projects panel inside its vertical tabs interface. The feature appears to introduce a “View projects” entry point in the sidebar, hinting at an alternative to managing individual tabs in favor of managing structured tasks.

From the early interface text, Projects is described as a way to “quickly switch between your tasks and your recent AI conversations without losing your place.” In practical terms, that seems to mean grouping related tabs together and potentially attaching Gemini chat threads to the same task. Chrome already lets Gemini interact with your open tabs in its sidebar, even maintaining separate conversations for different pages. Projects may take that a step further by bundling those discussions alongside the tabs themselves, keeping both your sources and your AI-assisted thinking in one place.

Google may even be experimenting with two layouts. One version appears to simply wrap existing Tab Groups into the Projects panel, while another adds conversation “threads” — likely referring to back-and-forth chats with Gemini — alongside those tabs. We haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, and since this is still in development, things could change significantly before any wider release.

If Projects for vertical tabs rolls out, there are obvious situations where it would be useful. Separating your work and personal tasks is one example, but planning a trip or researching a purchase via Chrome and Gemini could all be tidily bundled in one spot.