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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The Applied AI team has launched a new Chrome extension called Alfred, an AI-powered tool designed to help professionals work faster by reducing constant tab switching and enabling seamless access to artificial intelligence during everyday tasks.
Unveiling the product, Osaro Imohe, a software engineer specialising in applied AI, said the extension was developed to address a common challenge: the difficulty of getting practical, real-time value from AI at work.
“Our team created Alfred to solve the challenge of getting real value from AI in everyday work,” Imohe said. “Before now, people had to leave what they were doing, open ChatGPT in another tab, ask questions, and then return to their task. That constant switching slows people down.”
Positioned as a side panel within the Chrome browser, Alfred allows users to ask questions, generate content, and interact with any AI model without leaving their current tab. This, the team says, makes the tool more efficient than traditional AI chat interfaces.
Beyond simply providing AI responses, Alfred integrates with popular work tools such as Gmail, Google Calendar and other business applications, giving it access to user-specific information that standalone chatbots cannot retrieve.
“Most AI tools can’t tell you things like, ‘What emails did I receive this week?’ because they don’t have access to your data,” Imohe explained. “Alfred solves that by integrating deeply with the tools you use daily.”
The product, he added, is a result of several early experiments, including workflow automation builders and business data aggregators, but testers showed stronger interest in a simple browser-based extension that works everywhere they already work.
Alfred is currently in beta, with several early users already testing the tool. According to Imohe, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “People tell us they can’t imagine working without it,” he said.
Looking ahead, the team plans to make Alfred more proactive by enabling it to suggest tasks and automate certain activities. Because the extension runs directly inside the browser, it can observe the tools users frequently access and recommend helpful actions without being prompted.
The team is also exploring advanced features that will allow Alfred to display context-rich information inside existing apps. For instance, within Gmail, the extension could automatically surface everything a company knows about the sender of an email, helping users make quicker and more informed decisions.
