Usually, when a new Google Chrome update drops, I assume it’s Google just squeezing even more AI into the browser. Lately, that’s meant things like AI Mode in Search and Gemini baked right into Chrome.
If you’re not sold on AI gimmicks, those updates probably haven’t done much for you. But this latest Chrome update is different. Instead of flashy AI features, it focuses on useful improvements that’ll make your day-to-day browsing experience better, and it’s a welcome sight to see from Google.
The update, which is rolling out now, centers on three core additions: Split View, built-in PDF annotations, and a new “Save to Google Drive” feature.
Split View
See two tabs in one
The biggest addition in this update is Split View, which lets you divide a single Chrome window into two separate web pages. So if you’re in a meeting and want to take notes in Google Docs at the same time, you can view both side by side without juggling windows.
As someone who uses a multi-monitor setup at my desktop, this has always been one of my biggest frustrations when I’m working on my laptop away from home without them. Before Split View in Chrome, I had to manually drag tabs into separate windows and then use Windows 11’s built-in snap layout tool to divide them evenly across my screen. It worked, but it was clunky.
Now that it’s built directly into Chrome, you just click the Split View icon next to the address bar, and it handles everything inside the browser. It’s a small change, but for multitaskers, it’ll make it more convenient to look at two tabs at once on one screen.
PDF Annotations
Finally, you can sign PDFs in Chrome
This next change is game-changing if you handle a lot of PDFs, as Google has finally added built-in annotation tools to Chrome’s PDF viewer with this new update.
Now, when you open a PDF in Chrome, you can draw a digital signature, jot a quick note, or mark up revisions without jumping to another app like PDFgear or Adobe Acrobat, or switching to a browser that already supports annotations, like Microsoft Edge.
Most of my interactions with PDFs are just signing and sending them back. With this update, I can download a PDF from Gmail, sign it right in Chrome, and send it off without ever opening another program. It’s one of those small quality-of-life upgrades that ends up saving you a surprising amount of time.
My only ask is that, in a future update, Google adds the ability to annotate a PDF with a text box, as that will make it easier to type in your name or add a note to a PDF if needed, rather than marking it.
Save to Google Drive
A new folder for Google Drive
Lastly, if you rely on Google Drive for cloud storage, this change may be helpful as well. Google has added a new “Save to Google Drive” option that lets you save PDF files directly to your Drive, where they’ll land in a dedicated folder called “Saved from Chrome.”
If you’re anything like me and have a habit of downloading PDFs only to forget which random folder you buried them in, this should help. Everything saved through Chrome ends up in one place inside Google Drive (the Saved from Chrome folder), and you can move it wherever it needs to go afterward.
Again, it’s a small quality-of-life tweak. But if you download a lot of PDFs every day, having them automatically organized in a single, easy-to-find folder makes staying on top of them much easier.
The new Google Chrome update is rolling out now
If you want to try out these new Google Chrome features, they’re rolling out now as part of the latest Chrome update. To download the update, open Chrome and go to Settings > About Chrome. If the update is available to you, it will automatically download, and then you can relaunch Chrome to apply it.
