Chrome offers a neat little “Listen to this page” feature that reads out the web page when you’re busy with another task. This is also quite handy with lengthy news articles that take a lot of time. Essentially, the feature is just a simple text-to-speech model that reads out what it sees. It now appears that Google wants to change this by integrating NotebookLM-like Audio summaries into Chrome.
NotebookLM-like Audio Summaries on Google Chrome
The feature “Listen to the feed” is reportedly starting to roll out to users running Chrome Canary, as spotted by browser expert Leopeva64 on X. This was first discovered in June. It appears on the Chrome app for Android under the home/New tab screen. It provides a quick, podcast-style, conversational summary of the content in the Discover Feed.
The voices and the style of discussion used reportedly sound like NotebookLM’s implementation, suggesting that Google is using the same tech to power Chrome’s upcoming feature.
Not available widely yet
On tapping the new ‘Listen to the feed’ button, Chrome takes a couple of seconds to generate an AI playback. This opens a media player in its collapsed state with your Audio Overview playing. Tapping the player expands it, which reveals the title of the article, its source website, and a timeline. There are buttons to skip or rewind by 10 seconds, skip to the next or previous article, and a play/pause button. The media player is said to match your device’s theme.
The feature doesn’t seem to be widely available at the moment, even for those with Chrome Canary. This suggests it may be in testing with a limited number of users. The feature may roll out towards the end of the year, given that Google intends to.
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