Google has reportedly shuttered Project Mariner, its experimental research project to build a web-browsing AI agent that was first announced at the search giant’s I/O developer conference in 2025.
It was shut down on May 4, 2026, and its technology “voyaged” to other Google products, as per screenshots of the landing page of Project Mariner posted by users on X. It comes nearly two months after Google moved researchers working on the research prototype to higher-priority projects, according to a report by Wired.
The move is said to be Google’s response to the surging popularity of OpenClaw-style AI agents. It also highlights the AI industry’s broader shift away from AI browser agents toward more capable agentic AI tools such as Claude Code and OpenClaw.
While most of these agents are currently used mostly by developers, tech industry leaders believe that they could be more effective in powering general-purpose AI assistants that carry out tasks autonomously on behalf of individual users and businesses.
Project Mariner, Google’s web browser agent, was shutdown 2 days ago.
People on the project have been moved, and the tech is being used elsewhere.
Gemini Agent is coming out of Labs (US only) soon?https://t.co/R8hPwpZorx pic.twitter.com/NwHLQ4ReOn
— Kol Tregaskes (@koltregaskes) May 6, 2026
Note, Google has said that the computer use capabilities developed under Project Mariner will be incorporated into the company’s agent strategy moving forward. Other capabilities have already been folded into agent products such as the recently launched Gemini Agent, a Google spokesperson was cited as saying in the report.
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