Relay shuts down as its founder returns to Google's Chrome team

Jacob Bank is heading back to Google, this time to run product for Chrome. His AI workflow automation startup, Relay, is closing down, and part of its staff is following him into the browser team.

Relay launched in 2021 with a simple pitch: automate the repetitive grind of knowledge work, from drafting documents to copyediting, by chaining tasks into AI-driven workflows. Free users lost access on August 15, 2026, and paying customers will be cut off on September 14.

Bank's path back to Google traces a familiar loop. He first arrived there in 2015 when the company acquired his earlier startup, Timeful, a scheduling app. He spent more than six years at Google after that, leading product for Gmail, Calendar, and Chat before leaving to start Relay.

Now he's returning as VP of Product for Chrome, a role that puts him inside one of Google's most consequential AI battlegrounds. The browser has become a front line for Gemini, which Google has folded in as an optional in-browser assistant available to users as they navigate the web.

The timing lines up with Google's own numbers. The company recently said Gemini had crossed 1 billion users, a scale that makes distribution through Chrome, arguably the most-used piece of software on the planet, a natural next step for embedding the assistant deeper into everyday browsing.

For Relay's customers, the shutdown fits a pattern that has become common among independent AI automation tools: build a workflow layer on top of large language models, gain traction, then face a market where the platform holders (Google, Microsoft, OpenAI) increasingly bake similar automation directly into products people already use daily. Competing on distribution against a browser with billions of installs is a different fight than competing on features.

Bank's hire also says something about how Google is staffing its AI push inside Chrome specifically. Rather than treating the browser as a passive host for a chatbot sidebar, the company is recruiting people with direct experience building automation products, suggesting Chrome's AI ambitions extend beyond a simple assistant panel toward deeper task-automation features baked into the browsing experience itself.