Relay is closing its AI workflow automation product, ending a short run for a startup that set out in 2021 to become the new Zapier. The shutdown also moves part of its team, including founder and CEO Jacob Bank, into Google’s Chrome organization.
What Is Happening To Relay
Relay was built as an AI-powered workflow automation tool for businesses. Its core promise was productivity: help users streamline repetitive work through automation while applying AI to everyday tasks.
The company’s closure was initially announced in July. A company announcement shared Monday by Jacob Bank says paying customers will lose access on September 14. Free customers would have already lost access as of August 15.
That timeline gives Relay’s remaining paying users a limited window to wind down their use of the app. For teams that used Relay in live workflows, the practical issue is not only losing access to one product, but also replacing the routines it supported.
The source describes some of those routines as document drafting, copyediting, and project management tasks. Those are exactly the kinds of work that sit between individual productivity and team operations, where automation tools often try to remove manual steps from repeatable processes.
Jacob Bank Returns To Google
Bank is not new to Google. He originally joined Google in 2015 after his previous startup, the scheduling app Timeful, was acquired by the search giant. He later worked across several Google product areas, including as product lead for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Chat.
After leaving Google, Bank launched Relay with a similar broad interest in productivity tools. Timeful focused on scheduling, while Relay focused on workflow automation. In both cases, the shared theme was helping people manage work more efficiently through software.
Bank is now rejoining Google as VP of Product for Google Chrome. According to his LinkedIn, he will lead the product and developer relations teams for Chrome.
In a post on X, Bank described his career focus this way: “I’ve spent my whole career doing one thing: building tools that help people get more done with AI, without sacrificing their personal creativity or insights,” He added that joining Chrome is “an ideal opportunity to bring those experiences to many, many more people.”
He also pointed directly to future AI work inside the browser, saying: “We have some really ambitious plans to help you work with AI in Chrome to get things done, and I’ll have more to share soon,”
Why Chrome Matters For AI Workflows
The immediate facts are narrow: Relay is shutting down, some staff are joining Google’s Chrome team, and Bank is taking a senior Chrome product role. The larger question is what Chrome becomes as Google continues to add AI features into products that people already use.
Bank called Chrome “a perfect place to collaborate with agents.” That phrasing matters because Chrome is not just another productivity app. It is the place where many users already move between documents, tools, search, communication, and web-based software.
If AI assistance is placed inside that environment, it can potentially sit closer to the user’s actual work. The source does not say exactly what Bank and others will build. It does say that the plan involves helping users work with AI in Chrome to get things done.
That leaves several known pieces on the table:
- Relay’s background is AI workflow automation.
- Bank’s background includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chat, Timeful, and Relay.
- Chrome already has Gemini as an optional in-browser assistant.
- Google has reported that Gemini had crested 1 billion users.
Together, those facts suggest that Google sees the browser as an important surface for AI-assisted productivity. The source does not describe a specific product roadmap, but it does connect Relay’s team movement with Google’s broader AI integration across its user experience.
Google’s Broader AI Push
The Relay news follows a steady path of AI integration at Google. The source points to Gemini in search as a major change to Google’s front end and notes that Gemini has also been integrated into Chrome.
Inside Chrome, Gemini serves as an optional in-browser assistant. That positioning gives users a way to bring AI help into browsing without making it the only way to use the browser.
The source also says users seem to be responding well to these integrations, citing Google’s report that Gemini had crested 1 billion users. That figure gives context for why Chrome is a meaningful destination for an AI automation founder and some members of his staff.
For Relay customers, however, the near-term impact is simpler. The product they used is going away. Free access has already ended as of August 15, and paying customer access ends on September 14.
What To Watch Next
The unanswered question is how Relay’s automation experience will influence Chrome. The source says TechCrunch reached out to Google and to Relay for more information, but it does not include further details on the future product plans.
What is clear is that Bank is moving from building a standalone AI workflow automation product to leading product and developer relations for one of Google’s central user-facing platforms. That shift changes the possible scale of the work.
Relay aimed to help businesses automate repetitive tasks. Chrome gives Google a far broader place to introduce AI assistance into daily web work. Whether that becomes agent collaboration, browser-based workflow automation, or something else remains open based on the information available.
For now, the story is both an ending and a handoff: Relay is shutting down, while its founder and some of its team move into Google Chrome at a moment when AI is becoming a larger part of the browser experience.