ChatGPT now works directly inside Microsoft Word — and it also just got a Google Chrome extension, replacing OpenAI’s own standalone browser, which is being discontinued.
ChatGPT in Word: how it works
On September 17, OpenAI rolled out the general-availability version of an add-in that puts ChatGPT in a sidebar inside Word — the same add-in that had already been available for PowerPoint since July, now also working in Word and Excel, with no separate install needed if you’d already enabled it in one of the apps. From the sidebar, you can ask ChatGPT to draft something from loose notes, summarize a long document, revise a selected passage, or adjust headings and formatting — all without leaving Word.
The feature is available on every plan, including Free. On the free tier, usage inside Word draws from the same message/token allowance as regular ChatGPT; on paid plans, it draws from the same shared allowance as other premium features.
Atlas shuts down, a Chrome extension takes its place
Around the same time, OpenAI confirmed the end of Atlas, its own AI-powered browser launched just months earlier — the service stopped working on August 9. Rather than keep maintaining a standalone browser (a notoriously hard market to crack, since few people switch browsers and lose their saved passwords and extensions in the process), the company is migrating Atlas’s key features into a ChatGPT extension for Google Chrome itself.
Through the extension, you can ask ChatGPT to summarize a long news article, explain a technical document in plain language, compare products across different tabs while shopping, rewrite an email’s tone, or answer questions about the page you’re currently looking at — an AI sidebar that follows your browsing, instead of requiring a whole new browser.
Availability may vary by plan, region, device and account settings — worth checking directly on the Chrome Web Store.
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