It seems to me that the recent cosmetic changes to Chrome were a sleight of hand. As many people have pointed out here, there has been a major shift in Google's attitude towards its users and the web as a whole.

I think we are looking at the public face of something significant to have happened in Google search (and AI) and this attempt to start plugging all the gaps in our browsing habits is so that Google have as good as 95-100% understanding of human habits.

Foil hats on everybody :)