Generative Artificial Intelligence chatbots are more topical than ever thanks to the new improvements in recognition and interpretation that the latest version of ChatGPT-4 has brought.
We have already told you many of the novelties that this new generation of ChatGPT brings, which allows use images and videos as data input sources to generate response. But one of the main pitfalls in using it is that until now it had to be run in a separate tab from the OpenAI page.
This inconvenience is solved by the Merlin extension for Google Chrome that allows use ChatGPT from any web page by automatically detecting page content and providing contextual responses based on it.
This allows you to generate summaries of search results, transcribe YouTube videos to textgenerate texts based on the theme of the web content you are visiting and even generate responses using the GPT-4 model which is currently only available to users of ChatGPT Plus and the Bing Artificial Intelligence chatbot.
Install the Merlin extension in Google Chrome
The first step to use Merlin from Google Chrome will install the extension in the browser. To do this you just have to look for it in the extensions store Chrome Web Store.
Merlin is compatible with Chromium-based browsers, among which is Google Chrome, but also Vivaldi, Brave or Opera. It is out of the compatibility list Microsoft Edge, which despite being based on Chromium, is not compatible with Merlin.
On the Merlin plugin page, click Add to Chrome. Another dialog will appear warning you that Merlin can read your data on all websites. This may seem a bit aggressive for privacy policies, but it is an essential requirement for the service since they must know what you are seeing in order to contextualize it with your queries and the text you select, for example.
Merlin’s terms of use specify that this access is limited to the content of web pages, but that the extension does not collect personal information or IP addresses of the devices you use.
Continue clicking add extension in the pop-up window to resume the installation process.
Next, you will need to open the extension from the icon that appears to the right of your browser’s search bar and you will need to sign up with a Google account or email to start using ChatGPT through Merlin. Once this requirement is met, restart google chrome and Merlin will be ready to go.
What you can do with the Merlin extension in Google Chrome
With Merlin already installed in the browser, you can contextualize your queries to ChatGPT with online content directly from its source, without having to copy or paste it into the prompt from ChatGPT.
This makes the use of ChatGPT is much more comfortable and organic since it is enough to select a text from any page of the browser and press the combination Alt+M on Windows either Command+M on Macor right-click and choose the option Give Context to Merlin to invoke the extension and include the selected text in a popup window with a ChatGPT prompt ready to make your query.
The free version of Merlin is limited to 51 free consultations per day with ChatGPT-3, but each query to ChatGPT-4 will consume 10 creditsso if you prefer to use the most advanced model, the consultations are limited to 5 per day for free.
In addition to resolving doubts about the text selected on any website, Merlin allows you to rewrite text that you select, redact automatically emails using ChatGPT, write formulas for MS Excel or code for basic applications in different programming languages. Ultimately, Merlin can be used for anything ChatGPT can do from its own page.
Apply ChatGPT on YouTube videos or Google searches
Another of the additional functions provided by the Merlin extension in Google Chrome is the integration with certain services such as YouTube or the Google search engine that, in addition to obtaining a context for the queries, saves a lot of time by indexing the highlights of the videos, summarizing articles on the web or making it easier for you to search of content.
When accessing the YouTube page from the browser, you will see that a button has been added Summarize icon next to the usual YouTube Like button, as well as an additional bar next to the video window.
Pressing this button creates an index with the most interesting points of each video and a time button that, when pressed, takes you directly to the minute of the video where that topic is discussed.
merlin too helps you with content searches by synthesizing the results of the queries that you do from Google, although to us It has only worked for us when we have done the search from Google.combut not from Google.es.
To do this, you only have to make a query from the Google query bar and Merlin will get to work showing a pop-up window with a summary of the results that have appeared in your search, which can appear either on the side of the browser, or right at the bottom of the results page.
This is just one of the options that make it easy to access the functions of ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence integrating it directly into Google Chrome.
