Browser Automation (2026)

Browser automation tools let AI agents open pages, click, fill in forms, read content and debug web apps in a real browser. They power web research agents, end-to-end testing, data extraction and coding agents that need to see what their changes look like. Many are now available as MCP servers, so any MCP-compatible assistant can use them.

Compare how each tool drives the browser (Playwright, Chrome DevTools Protocol, or your own logged-in Chrome via an extension), whether it runs locally or as a hosted service, and how it handles logins and anti-bot measures. For scraping at scale, look at rate limiting and output formats. Because these tools act on real websites with your sessions, review permissions carefully.