Using Browser Use in SoterAI
Overview
Some of the websites you work with have no connector for SoterAI — an insurer portal, a government safety portal, a supplier dashboard. With Browser Use, the SoterAI agent opens a real web browser and works through the website for you: it navigates, clicks, fills in forms, reads pages, uploads files from your chat and brings downloaded files back into the conversation.
You watch every step live in a side panel. You stay in control throughout: you sign in to websites yourself, and the agent asks for your approval before it does anything with consequences.
Info: Browser Use is switched on for organisations by default. To check whether it’s on for you, or to have it switched on, see Turning Browser Use on or off below.
Note: Looking for the Chrome extension that copies an AI chat into web forms in your own browser? That’s a different feature — see Using the SoterAI Browser Extension.
At a glance
| What | How it works |
|---|---|
| Start a run | Ask SoterAI in chat to do something on a website |
| Watch the agent | Live browser view in a side panel, with the agent’s current step |
| Sign in, verify or pay | The agent hands the browser to you for passwords, verification codes, CAPTCHAs and payment details, then you hand it back |
| Approve an action | The agent waits for your approval before anything that’s hard to undo |
| Stop a run | Stop the agent at any point from the side panel |
| Review afterwards | Watch the replay from the run card in the chat |
| Saved sign-ins | Kept for you personally and reused across all your chats |
| Turn it on or off | Your Soter Customer Success Manager switches it for your whole organisation |
Starting a run
Ask SoterAI in plain language what you need done on a website. For example:
When the agent starts working in the browser, a run card appears in its reply and the browser opens in a side panel next to the chat. The panel shows the live browser and what the agent is doing at the moment. If you close the panel, select the run card to open it again.
Note: Working through a website takes longer than a normal chat reply — each step involves loading pages and reading them. A run can take a few minutes, especially on longer forms.
Signing in and taking over
When a website asks you to sign in, enter a verification code, solve a CAPTCHA or enter payment details, the agent pauses and hands control of the browser to you.
- 1In the side panel, complete the step directly in the website — for example, type your username and password.
- 2Select Return control to agent.
- 3The agent carries on from where it stopped.
You type straight into the website in the agent’s browser, not into the chat. The AI model never sees your passwords, and they’re never stored.
Approving actions
Before the agent does anything that’s hard to undo — such as submitting a form, sending a message, placing an order, making a payment or deleting something — it stops and waits for you. Review what it’s about to do in the side panel, then select Approve to let it go ahead, or decline. If you decline, the agent doesn’t carry out that action.
Stopping a run
You can stop the agent at any time from the side panel. The browser stops where it is, and you can continue the conversation in chat as normal.
Watching the replay
After a run ends, open the run card in the chat to watch a replay of what the agent did in the browser. This is useful for checking exactly which pages it visited and what it entered.
Turning Browser Use on or off
Browser Use is switched on for organisations by default. It’s switched on or off for a whole organisation, not for individual users — there’s no Browser Use switch in your own settings.
Checking whether it’s on
Ask SoterAI in chat to do something on a website, for example: “Open [website] and tell me what’s on the home page.”
- If Browser Use is on, a run card appears in the reply and the browser opens in the side panel.
- If it’s off, SoterAI doesn’t open a browser.
Switching it on or off
Contact your Soter Customer Success Manager and tell them the name of your organisation in SoterAI. Soter switches Browser Use on or off for you. The change applies to everyone in your organisation.
Info: To remove the website sign-ins the agent’s browser keeps for you, you don’t need to switch Browser Use off — see Managing Agent Browser Sign-ins.
Working with files
- Uploading: the agent can take a file from your chat and upload it to a form on the website.
- Downloading: files the agent downloads from a website are added to your chat, so you can open them or ask SoterAI about them.
Warning: If the agent downloads a file and then hands control to you (for example, to sign in), that earlier download isn’t kept. Ask the agent to download the file again after you return control.
Your saved sign-ins
Once you sign in to a website during a run, the agent’s browser remembers that sign-in for you. The next time the agent needs the same website — in this chat or any other chat — it can use it without asking you to sign in again.
The agent’s browser keeps only your signed-in state for each website, like “Remember me” in a normal browser — never your password. Saved sign-ins are encrypted and are never shared with anyone else.
- Saved sign-ins belong to you only. Nobody else, including people in your organisation, can use them.
- Deleting a chat doesn’t remove your saved sign-ins.
- Each website decides how long a sign-in lasts, so some websites will still ask you to sign in again from time to time.
To remove all your saved sign-ins, see Managing Agent Browser Sign-ins.
Things to know
- Browser Use is for websites without a SoterAI connector. If a connector exists for the platform, use the connector — it’s faster and more reliable.
- The agent works in its own browser in the cloud, not in the browser on your computer. Signing out of its browser doesn’t sign you out of your own browser, and the other way round.
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