Safari in iOS 27 can build you a custom browser extension from a description

Apple is adding a feature to Safari in iOS 27 and macOS 27 called Describe an Extension that lets users build custom browser extensions by typing what they want. No code, no developer tools, no App Store review — the extension generates and installs directly in the Safari toolbar.

The example Apple used at yesterday’s Apple developer event is simple: a button that saves and rates recipes on cooking websites. But the range of things a browser extension can do is much wider — they can capture page content, modify how pages look, add or hide interface elements, automate clicks, flag specific text, extract and reformat data, and more. All of that was previously only accessible to people with JavaScript knowledge or those who could find a developer who’d already built exactly what they needed.

The more relevant comparison is against Safari’s extension catalog. Chrome’s Web Store has hundreds of thousands of extensions covering almost any niche workflow; Safari’s catalog has historically been smaller, partly because the development requirements are different and partly because the audience of Safari-on-Mac users was seen as smaller. Describe an Extension doesn’t require Apple to grow a catalog. It lets individual users fill in whatever gaps matter to them, without waiting for a developer to notice the same need.

Practical uses would include: stripping cookie consent banners from specific sites that existing blockers miss, highlighting keywords you care about on pages you read regularly, converting prices to your local currency on international shopping sites, pulling a specific piece of information from a page into a note, or adding a bookmark button formatted exactly the way you want it. These are all things extensions can already do — the barrier was always building them.

Generated extensions install immediately into the toolbar. If the first version doesn’t quite do what you wanted, you describe the change and Safari adjusts it. The generation runs through Apple Intelligence, using the same on-device and Private Cloud Compute infrastructure backing other AI features in iOS 27.

Apple didn’t specify whether Describe an Extension works on iPhone and iPad, where Safari extension support is more limited. The feature is most likely aimed at Mac users, where extensions are a bigger part of the browsing workflow and where the gap between Safari’s catalog and Chrome’s is most noticeable.

There’s a secondary implication for Safari’s position as a platform. One of the consistent criticisms of Safari — particularly from power users on Mac — is that it can’t match Chrome’s extension ecosystem. That gap has pushed some users to keep Chrome installed alongside Safari for specific workflows. Describe an Extension doesn’t eliminate the gap, but it changes the calculus: if you can generate the specific extension you need in thirty seconds, the size of the catalog matters less.

The feature is in developer beta now following WWDC26 on June 8. It will ship to general users when macOS 27 and iOS 27 launch this fall.

via Apple Newsroom