Google just made a major ChromeOS misstep – Computerworld

ChromeOS and the end of the Everything era

So here it is: Google’s pulling that long-standing, distinctive Search/Launcher/Everything key from the most prominent spot on the Chromebook’s keyboard and putting a new “Quick Insert” key into its place.

In the same Caps-Lock-associated stall will now reside a function that feels mostly like an excuse to cram more Gemini-branded generative-AI gobbledygook into everyone’s faces and try to convince us that it’s, like, totally The Future™ and something we should be leaning on every hour of every day.

To its credit, Google at least isn’t turning the button into a full-fledged Gemini button. Instead, it’s making it a multifaceted source for inserting different types of content into text fields throughout the ChromeOS environment. That means you can use it to call up emojis, GIFs, files, and photos — and, of course, to summon Gemini’s Help Me Write system for generating text of questionable quality and soon also Gemini’s AI image generating system, too. But it seems pretty clear that those last two factors are the driving cause for this genesis.