The Best AI Chrome Extensions Worth Installing in 2026
I’ve tested dozens of AI Chrome extensions and most are junk. Here are the ones I actually keep installed and use regularly.
MaxAI: Summarizes any web page, translates content, and lets you ask questions about what you’re reading. The “chat with page” feature is genuinely useful for long articles.
SciSpace: If you read academic papers, this is essential. It explains complex passages, defines technical terms, and extracts key findings. Free tier is generous.
Merlin: Quick access to multiple AI models (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini) in your browser sidebar. Great for quick lookups without switching tabs.
Grammarly with AI: I know it’s been around forever, but the AI features now go beyond grammar. It can rephrase paragraphs, adjust tone, and generate text contextually.
GlassP: AI-generated YouTube video summaries with timestamps. Great when you want the content without watching a 45-minute video.
Extensions I tried and dropped: Numerous AI meeting transcribers (they all conflict with each other), ChatGPT sidebar clones (Merlin does it better), and any extension that tries to auto-fill forms with AI (too risky).
What extensions are you using?
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scispace is solid but have you tried elicit? it actually searches across papers for you, not just explains the one you're already on. different use case but honestly more useful if you're doing research from scratch
dropped glassp because it kept getting broken after youtube updates. switched to just pasting the transcript into claude directly. one extra step but way more reliable
the form autofill warning is understated. some of those extensions request way too many permissions and you're basically giving them read access to everything you type. not worth it regardless of convenience
yeah the permissions thing bothers me too. i audit my extensions every couple months and it's always surprising what some of them are actually asking for. most people never check
quick question - is the free tier of perplexity good enough or do you really need pro?
perplexity free is fine for quick lookups but the pro search mode actually uses more sources and handles follow-up questions way better. depends how deep you're going