# AI Skills Verification and Chrome Agentic Browsing

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-01-29

## Transcript

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Chrome takes on AI Browsers.
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Finally, a way to prove to your LinkedIn followers that you're proficient in vibe coding.
Yeah, that's right.
LinkedIn announced a new partnership on Wednesday, allowing users to display official certifications in AI skills, drawing on usage data from prominent AI apps.
Now the integration includes the video and podcast editor to script, coding apps lovable and replicate and AI agent-building platform Relay.app.
These platforms will use AI to assess your skills as you use them and generate a certificate based on your usage patterns, product outcomes, and proficiency within the tools.
The Microsoft owned social network didn't provide exact details on what users would need to do to qualify as proficient on the platform.
LinkedIn plans to add more partners to the program in the coming months, including Gamma, GitHub, and Zapier.
The platform's also inviting companies to register interest in being a partner in the new verified skills program.
According to a report by the learning platform EdX published last August, the number of job postings that required AI as a skill doubled in the trailing 12 months.
A separate report from Indeed's hiring lab echoed the same trend and noted that the number of U.S.
job postings mentioning AI-related keywords rose to 4.2% by the end of 2025.
The report mentioned that tech is still the most common sector where companies use AI-related words and postings, but other sectors like banking and marketing are also rising.
Amazon said today that it's cutting 16,000 jobs across the company.
She noted that the reason for the second round of massive layoffs within three months was that several teams in the company hadn't finished their restructuring.
Galetti didn't outright deny that there might be more job slashes in the company, but said that the company is not trying to create a pattern of large layoffs every few months.
In October, Amazon said that it had 1.57 million employees and had registered single-digit growth in the past five quarters prior to that, according to the company's Q3 2025 filing.
The company is set to publish its Q4 2025 results next week.
In its latest blog post, Galletti said that despite these job cuts, the company will continue to hire in strategic areas.
Last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote a memo that said because of AI, the company will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs.
He also indicated that the company's corporate workforce will see a reduction in the next few years.
Last year, a swarm of AI browsers from companies like OpenAI, Perplexity, Opera, and the Browser Company launched with the aim to replace Chrome with features like sidebar assistance and automated tasks.
Well, now Google is flexing its own AI muscle by adding similar features to Chrome itself.
You know, the world's largest browser by market share.
Now, while Google had introduced Gemini to Chrome last September, the assistant lived in a floating window.
Well, with this update, the company will put its AI helper into a persistent sidebar so you can ask questions about the current website or other open tabs.
One interesting feature Google demoed to press ahead of today's launch involved multiple tabs.
You see, when you open different tabs from a single web page, the Gemini sidebar understands them as a context group.
This is helpful when you're comparing prices or different products you're considering purchasing.
Before Wednesday, the Gemini in Chrome feature was available only to Windows and Mac OS users.
Not so with this rollout.
You see, the sidebar will now be available to Chromebook Plus users as well.
This feature will roll out in Chrome in the coming months, meaning that you can ask Gemini in the sidebar about things like your family schedule, or ask it to draft an email and send it without switching to Gmail.
However, the most ambitious feature is called get this auto browse, and it aims to handle tasks for you by using your personal information and traversing websites on your behalf.
For instance, you can ask the agentic feature to go to a particular website and buy an item for you and find a discount coupon.
Looks like we're one step closer to Jane, huh?
And that's your daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Ivan Meta and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same tech time, same crunch channel.
And I'll tell them find us at TechCrunch.com.
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