1. You’re totally right to flag the potential overlap with Google’s Gemini and its integration into Workspace — it’s something we’ve thought a lot about. Google is definitely making strong moves here, but we see our opportunity not in replacing Gemini, but in building an AI layer that works across tools and ecosystems, not just within Google’s walled garden.
While Gemini is powerful inside Workspace, we think many users — especially knowledge workers and power users — don’t live exclusively inside Google’s tools. They might draft in Google Docs, communicate in Proton Mail, manage tasks in Notion, and read articles in Firefox. That fragmented workflow is exactly where our extension shines: by giving them a consistent, context-aware AI assistant wherever they are, not just inside Google’s UI.
You also make a good point about extension portability. We’re definitely exploring alternative “wedges” and distribution channels — like targeting users who prefer privacy-first tools (e.g. Proton Mail, Firefox), or platforms where the incumbents have less AI integration.
So in short: yes, we’re aware of the risk — but we believe there’s still a meaningful opportunity in offering a more flexible, cross-platform assistant that complements rather than competes directly with the big players’ native solutions.
2. For auth, we're using Clerk (which is a bit less well supported in extensions than we'd like, but works well enough), and the Chrome 'Identity' API to allow you to OAuth with Gmail.
Complying with MV3 isn't too hard to achieve, and the Chrome store has a fairly robust review process. They have a 'slow queue' for reviewing apps that request higher permissions (like ours has to) which means shipping hotfixes isn't really possible! It's usually a 48 hr loop to get new code deployed.
Re. hot module replacement we're using https://wxt.dev/ which is built on top of Vite and has been really good. Seamless dev experience with all the affordances you expect in modern web dev tooling. Would definitely recommend.
Cheers