At Google I/O 2025, Google announced the expansion of its experimental AI agent, Project Mariner, to a broader audience of users and developers. The company also revealed significant updates to how Project Mariner operates, enabling it to handle up to ten tasks simultaneously.
American users who subscribe to Google's new AI Ultra plan, priced at $249.99 per month, will gain access to Project Mariner. Google stated that more countries will be supported in the future. Additionally, Google plans to integrate Project Mariner's capabilities into Gemini API and Vertex AI, empowering developers to create applications powered by this agent.
Initially launched at the end of 2024, Project Mariner represents Google’s most ambitious effort to redefine how users interact with the internet through AI agents. At its debut, the head of Google Search described Project Mariner as part of a fundamental shift in user experience, where users delegate more tasks to AI agents instead of manually visiting websites to complete them.
For instance, Project Mariner users can purchase baseball game tickets or shop for groceries online without visiting third-party websites. They simply need to chat with Google's AI agent, which will access the sites and perform the actions on their behalf.
Project Mariner competes with other web-browsing AI agents like OpenAI's Operator, Amazon's Nova Act, and Anthropic's Computer Use. These tools are still in the experimental phase, and TechCrunch’s trials suggest that these prototypes are relatively slow and prone to errors.
However, Google has incorporated feedback from early testers to enhance Project Mariner's functionality. A Google spokesperson informed TechCrunch that the company has updated Project Mariner to run on virtual machines in the cloud, similar to the systems used by OpenAI and Amazon. This allows users to work on other projects while Project Mariner completes tasks in the background—Google claims the updated version can handle up to 10 tasks at once.
This update makes Project Mariner significantly more useful compared to its earlier version, which ran on users' browsers. As I noted in my initial review, the previous design prevented users from utilizing other tabs or desktop applications while the AI agent was working. This somewhat contradicted the purpose of an AI agent—it worked for you, but you couldn’t do anything else while it operated.
In the coming months, Google says users will be able to access Project Mariner within AI Mode, the company's AI-driven search experience. Initially, this feature will be limited to Search Labs, Google’s search functionality testing platform. Google is collaborating with Ticketmaster, StubHub, Resy, and Vagaro to support these automated processes.
Today, Google also showcased an early demo of another agent-based experience called "Agent Mode." The company explained that this feature combines web browsing, research capabilities, and integrations with other Google applications. Google stated that Ultra subscribers will soon gain access to Agent Mode on desktops.
