Chrome’s Gemini-powered sidebar, internally known as Project Glic, is currently restricted to the US region. This geofence is enforced via local eligibility flags and variation settings rather than strict server-side IP checks, meaning it can be bypassed by modifying the browser's global state.
Configuration Overrides
To unlock the feature, ensure Chrome is fully terminated and apply the following modifications to your Local State file. You will need to find these specific keys within the JSON structure and update their values:
- is_glic_eligible: Set all instances to
true(perform a global search as it may appear multiple times). - variations_country: Set to
"us". - variations_permanent_consistency_country: Set to
["YOUR_CHROME_VERSION", "us"](e.g.,["132.0.6834.111", "us"]).
Note: You can find your current Chrome version in chrome://version.
Technical Implementation
The Local State file (a global JSON config) dictates the eligibility of experimental features. You can find it at:
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Local State - Windows:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Local State - Linux:
~/.config/google-chrome/Local State
Eligibility Flags
The is_glic_eligible key is a recursive flag. In many cases, it may appear multiple times within the JSON structure; all instances must be set to true to ensure the sidebar UI is initialized.
Regional Spoofing
The variations_country and variations_permanent_consistency_country keys define the locale for the Variations service (Chrome's A/B testing framework). Setting these to us satisfies the client-side regional check for AI Innovations.
Upon relaunching Chrome, the AI Innovations toggle will appear in Settings, and the Gemini icon will be accessible in the toolbar or side panel. If the UI still fails to load, verify that chrome://flags/#optimization-guide-on-device-model is set to Enabled.
