Google has reassigned staffers from Project Mariner, its Chrome browser AI agent, to higher-priority projects, with the company confirming the computer use capabilities will be folded into its broader agent strategy, including the recently launched Gemini Agent. The shift mirrors a broader industry pivot away from browser agents, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent fell to less than one million weekly active users in recent months and Perplexity’s Comet browser agent reached just 2.8 million, while coding agents like Claude Code and OpenClaw have surged in adoption by proving faster and more reliable through text-based terminal control rather than screenshot-driven webpage navigation. AI labs broadly appear to be shifting their bets from browser agents to coding agents, with OpenAI executives saying they want Codex to power general-purpose agents inside ChatGPT, and Anthropic having already launched Claude Cowork, a version of Claude Code that does not require users to open a terminal.
