Got five product pages open and still can not decide? Edge can now read all of them at once and give you a straight answer. Copilot’s multi-tab reasoning feature lets you ask a question about all your open tabs at once, and Copilot pulls from every page to compare, summarize, and help you decide. Chrome does not have this built in. Here is how to use it.
What Is Multi-Tab Reasoning in Edge?
Multi-tab reasoning is a Copilot feature in Edge that lets you ask questions across all your open tabs at once. Instead of reading five pages and mentally comparing them yourself, you ask Copilot something like “Which of these laptops has the best battery life?” or “Summarize the key differences between these hotels” and Copilot reads all the open pages and gives you a combined answer.
It works on desktop and mobile. On desktop, it arrived as part of Edge’s Copilot update in May 2026. On mobile (iOS and Android), it rolled out in the same update, making Edge on the phone actually useful for research that used to require constant tab switching.
Where It Works Best
Multi-tab reasoning is genuinely useful in these situations:
- Shopping comparisons: Open a few product pages and ask Copilot to compare specs, prices, or reviews across all of them.
- Travel planning: Open hotel or flight tabs and ask which option offers the best value for your dates and needs.
- News research: Open several articles covering the same story and ask Copilot to summarize the key facts or highlight where the sources disagree.
- Job comparisons: Open multiple job listing pages and ask Copilot which role best matches a set of criteria.
- Technical decisions: Open documentation or spec sheets for competing tools and ask Copilot to explain the key differences.
How to Use Multi-Tab Reasoning on Desktop
You need to be signed in with a Microsoft account in Edge. The feature is available in all Copilot-supported markets.
- Open all the tabs you want Copilot to read. You can have as many as you like, but three to five is the most manageable range.
- Click the Copilot icon in the top-right corner of Edge (the chat button, labeled “Chat”).
- The Copilot panel opens on the right side of the screen.
- Type your question about the open tabs. For example: “Compare these phones” or “Which of these hotels is closest to the airport?”
- Copilot will indicate that it is reading your open tabs and then return a summary or comparison based on what it found across all of them.
Copilot reads the content of all your open tabs with your permission. The first time you use tab-aware features, Edge will ask you to confirm that Copilot can access your tab content. You can change this permission later in Settings under Copilot and AI.
How to Use Multi-Tab Reasoning on Mobile
On iOS and Android, the process is similar but the interface is slightly different.
- Open the Edge mobile app and open the tabs you want Copilot to compare.
- Tap the Copilot icon in the browser toolbar (usually at the bottom of the screen).
- The Copilot chat opens as a sheet from the bottom of the screen.
- Type your question. Copilot will access your open tabs and respond based on all of them.
On mobile, this feature is especially useful because tab switching on a phone is genuinely painful. Being able to ask a question across five open tabs without leaving Copilot saves a lot of back-and-forth.
Tips for Getting Better Answers
Multi-tab reasoning works better when you ask focused, specific questions.
- Be specific about what you want compared. “Which is cheaper?” is faster to answer than “Tell me about these products.” The more specific your question, the more useful Copilot’s response.
- Close irrelevant tabs before asking. Copilot reads all open tabs. If you have unrelated tabs mixed in, they can muddy the response. Keep only the tabs you want compared.
- Ask follow-up questions. After the first answer, you can ask for more detail: “Which one has better reviews?” or “What are the downsides of the second option?”
- Ask Copilot to cite sources. Copilot’s answer is drawn from the pages you have open, and you can ask it to say which tab each piece of information came from: “Which tab said that?”
What Copilot Can and Cannot Do Across Tabs
Multi-tab reasoning is good at extracting and comparing factual information: prices, specs, dates, and claims that appear in the text of a page. It is less reliable on pages that are mostly images, heavily JavaScript-rendered content, or pages behind a login that Copilot cannot fully read.
Copilot can also miss nuance. A product review that uses irony or a hotel listing that buries an important caveat in the fine print may not be picked up accurately. Always check the source tab for anything important before acting on Copilot’s comparison.
Copilot does not store the content of your tabs between sessions. Each conversation starts fresh, so if you close the Copilot panel and open it again later, you will need to re-ask your question.
Privacy: What Copilot Can See
When multi-tab reasoning is active, Copilot reads the text content of your open tabs. This includes everything visible on those pages: product descriptions, article text, prices, reviews, and so on. It does not read content from pages you have not opened, content from other browser profiles, or InPrivate tabs.
Your tab content is processed according to Microsoft’s privacy standards and is not stored permanently by default. If you are doing research that involves sensitive topics, you can use InPrivate mode to exclude those tabs from Copilot’s access, or you can deny Copilot tab access in settings and only use it for single-page questions.
Good to Know
- This feature is only available in Edge. Chrome’s Gemini side panel can read one page at a time but does not currently offer multi-tab comparison built into the browser.
- You do not need a Microsoft 365 subscription to use multi-tab reasoning. It is available to all Edge users signed in with a personal Microsoft account in supported markets.
- The new Edge new tab page also lets you start a Copilot question without having tabs already open. Copilot will open and search the web on your behalf if you ask a question from the new tab page.
Multi-tab reasoning is one of the most practical AI features Edge has shipped. It does not require you to change how you browse. Open tabs the same way you always do, and when you are ready to make a decision, ask Copilot instead of reading each page yourself. The time savings on a typical comparison task are real.
