Google bets on AI agents with Gemini 3.5 Flash, Spark, and Omni at I/O 2026

Google announces agent-optimized Gemini 3.5.Flash and a do-anything model called Omni

At last year's I/O event, Google was still talking about the 2.5 branch of Gemini, and what a difference a year makes. We've gone through the 3.0 and 3.1 families since then, and now it's on to version 3.5. Gemini 3.5 Flash is rolling out across a wide range of Google products starting today, and Google again claims this model is even better than its last-gen Pro model. That has been a trend with Google's tick-tock model updates over the past year, but the team says this release is special. Gemini 3.5 Flash allegedly offers frontier-level intelligence while also being efficient enough that it may finally make complex agentic tasks worth doing at scale. Tulsee Doshi, senior director of product management for Gemini, explains that the innovations of Gemini 3.5 Flash are woven through multiple Google products, and this is just the start. It's no secret that generative AI is currently a money pit, and all the major AI players are trying to find paths to greater efficiency. The problem is magnified when you start building agentic experiences that are supposed to run for longer to complete complex tasks. Gemini 3.5 Flash may be a big step toward making that viable. The new model can output nearly 300 tokens per second, but its benchmark scores are similar to larger frontier models (like 3.1 Pro) that build outputs at a quarter of that speed. According to Doshi, the team made numerous improvements in pre-training with Gemini 3.5 Flash, but insights gleaned from the way devs actually use Gemini models are really paying off. "With post-training, we're really starting to unlock some of the value of the feedback we're getting from users, for example, from Antigravity," said Doshi. "That's really what you're seeing play out in terms of the code performance and the tool use performance. And then, the hope is that you'll continue to see the step change where 3.5 Pro will be better, and the next Flash meets Pro performance with that series." Google is very focused on code generation with the new model, which is a core agentic angle for AI. Both Terminal Bench and SWE-Bench Pro tests show substantial improvements -- 3.5 Flash clobbers older Flash models and shows a small but measurable improvement versus Gemini 3.1 Pro. Its scores are in the same neighborhood as OpenAI's much larger and more expensive GPT 5.5. A major barrier in agentic workflows is how generative models can use interfaces designed for humans. It's not an easy problem to solve, Doshi said. "Certain things like UI control are expensive to do because the model has to search the page, it has to know where to click, it has to act through multiple steps. I think Flash is able to do that well because of that combination of quality and cost." Google's AI evaluations demonstrate these improvements, too. Among Google's current collection of benchmarks is OSWorld-Verified, which tests how models handle general tasks in real computing environments. It's similar to the coding improvements. Gemini 3.5 Flash substantially outperforms older Flash models and is even a bit faster than Gemini 3.1 Pro. It's essentially tied with GPT 5.5. Gemini 3.5 Flash has been rolled out internally at Google, and Doshi noted that it's having a big impact. "We have a set of internal metrics we've been evaluating that measures how Googlers code, so looking at our own code bases and how well the models perform on that," Doshi said. "And you can see a massive, massive jump between where 3.1 Pro was and where 3.5 Flash is." Google unveiled the Antigravity IDE last year, and it's being upgraded to version 2.0 with support for Gemini 3.5 Flash. This update will support multiple parallel workflows -- essentially sub-agents spawned by Gemini 3.5 Flash. Again, Google says this is only possible because the new model is so efficient at spitting out tokens. In addition to Antigravity, Gemini 3.5 Flash is coming to the Gemini app, the API, AI Studio, Android Studio, and all of Google's enterprise products. As for the Pro variant, Google says that's already in internal testing, and it should be ready for release next month. Gemini Spark is 3.5 Flash in agent form Companies are moving on from "AI" as their primary buzzword to "agents." With Gemini Spark, Google is offering its first dedicated agent to users. Spark runs 24/7 in Google's cloud, so it doesn't use any of your computing resources and isn't tied to any specific device or browser tab. Instead, it sprawls across your entire Google footprint using Gemini Flash 3.5 to run multiple agentic workflows at your command. Google doesn't always explain its buzzwords very well. So what is an AI agent anyway? Google's Doshi explains: "I think of agents as being able to take a model plus a harness [software interface] such that the combination can actually take action on your behalf." With Spark, you can give the AI instructions, and it goes off to handle the task. This can take place over time as the agent grabs context from your Drive files, Gmail, and more. You could have it watch for certain emails and integrate them into daily digests or have it monitor your meetings and generate summaries and action items. Spark can send you notifications or ask follow-up questions to better meet your needs, too, and Google stresses that it's designed to ask for your approval before undertaking "high-stakes actions." Doshi says she has been a daily user of Gemini Spark during internal testing over the past few weeks, using it for personal and professional tasks. She provided two examples of Spark agents she uses. In the run-up to I/O, she used Spark to pull together evaluations and other stats on 3.5 Flash to build a slide deck for Google higher-ups. "It turned out beautifully," she said. "Probably better and in much less time than I would have been able to do." On the personal side, she created an agent that tracks developmental milestones for her new child. The agent provides insights into the data and suggests other metrics worth tracking. "I'm treating my child like an AI model," Doshi joked. "I realize that, but it has been very helpful." A lot of people may turn up their nose at providing so much personal data to an AI model running in Google's cloud, but sensibilities may adjust if this stuff becomes truly useful. Many of the ways people share data with Google today would have been unthinkable 10 or 15 years ago. Spark is rolling out to AI Ultra subscribers starting next week. Google has added a new tier of Ultra, which gives you access to the latest features. It costs $100 per month, which most would still consider an astronomical amount for AI tools, but the $200 per month tier ($50 lower than before) still exists for those who want higher token limits. Google says the plan is to roll Spark out to all users (even those who don't pay for Gemini) down the road. Gemini Omni: an everything model (eventually) Veo 3, Google's concerningly good video model, debuted at last year's I/O, but there's a new video-generator in town this year. Gemini Omni Flash will be replacing Veo in products like the Gemini app, YouTube, and Flow. Google says Omni was designed to be truly multimodal, so it can accept any kind of input data and produce anything you want -- images, text, video, or audio. However, it doesn't do most of that right now. Google is starting with video, hence the swap with Veo. While it's similar to the new Gemini 3.5 models, Omni Flash is not explicitly part of that branch. This is something unique at Google, and it could represent a new direction for the company's AI products. "The vision for Gemini has always been that it would be multimodal in, multimodal out," Doshi said. "Omni is a step toward that vision." Right now, you have to connect to the model that does what you want. For images, Google routes your prompt to Nano Banana. If you want music, your input goes to Lyria. Developers must plug in to the right API, and not all models are available in all tools. The day could be coming that everything passes through a unified model like Omni, but it's still early days, and the Gemini team isn't yet sure how Omni will develop. The next few months will be telling as Google looks at opening the Omni model up to more output types to see how it performs compared to Google's other models. "We might find that there are certain use cases that really benefit from their own custom model and specific focus," said Doshi. "It's not fully proven out yet that in the next few months we can pull everything into one experience." The first Omni release is a Flash model, meaning it's smaller than the frontier Pro models. Google does intend to release an Omni Pro model at some point, but there's no timeline for that. If multimodality in Omni comes together, these models may eventually form the basis for future Gemini releases to simplify Google's AI ecosystem.

Google updates its Gemini app to take on ChatGPT and Claude at IO 2026 | TechCrunch

At its annual Google I/O event on Tuesday, Google announced that the Gemini app is getting a series of new updates, including a "Daily Brief" feature, a redesigned interface, access to a new AI video model called Gemini Omni, and new personal AI agent called Gemini Spark. The updates signal Google's push to turn its Gemini app into an all-purpose AI hub rather than a stand-alone chatbot and to make the AI assistant more competitive with apps like ChatGPT and Claude. Google describes the new Daily Brief feature as a personalized digest designed to be your first stop each morning. It pulls together information from a user's inbox, calendar, and most important tasks, and then organizes them into a clear overview. The company says Daily Brief doesn't just summarize this information -- it also prioritizes tasks and suggests next steps, with the most important items shown first. Daily Brief is rolling out today to Google AI subscribers in the United States. The Gemini app already has considerable reach: The company said it has more than 900 million monthly users and is available in over 230 countries and in more than 70 languages. But Google clearly wants more and without losing its existing customers. Google said it rebuilt the app from the ground up. Now when users open the app, they'll see a new design language called "Neural Expressive," which brings fluid animations, vibrant colors, new typography, and haptic feedback. Gemini's responses are no longer presented as a wall of text, which is the case with most AI chatbots. Instead, key information appears in bold at the top. Additional text and possibly other elements such as images and timelines appear as the user scrolls down. As for Gemini Spark, Google describes it as a 24/7 personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life. Spark transforms Gemini from an assistant into an active partner that does real work on your behalf. Since it's a cloud-based agent, Spark keeps working in the background even when you lock your phone. With Gemini Spark in the Gemini app, users will be able to create their own custom workflows. Spark is currently in testing and the company expects to make it available to Google AI Ultra subscribers next week. The company's new AI video model, Gemini Omni, combines Gemini with Google's generative media models to create outputs grounded in knowledge. For example, you could give it a simple prompt like "claymation explainer of protein folding." The model lets you upload audio, images, and video to generate a consistent, high-quality video, according to Google. By adding access to a new video-generation model like Gemini Omni, Google is intensifying competition among major AI platforms in the ongoing race to lead multimodal content generation. The model is rolling out to Google Flow and YouTube Shorts for Google AI subscribers, underscoring the company's broader push into multimodal content creation and AI-powered video tools. Google Search as you know it is over Google updates Gemini app to take on ChatGPT and Claude

With Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google bets its next AI wave on agents, not chatbots | TechCrunch

Google launched on Tuesday Gemini 3.5 Flash, a new AI model that the company says is its strongest yet for coding and autonomous AI agents. The model, which was introduced at the company's annual I/O developer conference, can independently execute coding pipelines, manage research projects, and, in internal tests, build an operating system entirely from scratch. The release signals Google's shift from pitching AI as a conversational tool to AI as an agentic tool. It's not just answering questions, but planning, building, and iterating on real work with minimal human input. "3.5 Flash offers an incredible combination of quality and low latency," Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind's chief technologist, told reporters on Monday ahead of the public launch. "It outperforms our latest frontier model, 3.1 Pro, on nearly all the benchmarks," including coding, agentic tasks, and multimodal reasoning. He added that it is four times faster than other frontier models, a speed that's ideal for coding and agentic tasks, but that Google has "taken it to another level" by developing an optimized version of Flash that's 12 times faster with the same quality. That speed is central to Flash's design for agentic work, where multiple AI agents run at the same time on long-running tasks, according to Kavukcuoglu. On stage at I/O, Google engineer Varun Mohan, demonstrated agents spawning off to work on separate components before coming together to build a full operating system inside Antigravity, the company's agentic development platform and IDE. Kavukcuoglu said Flash 3.5 was co-developed with Antigravity so that agents could have a "native environment where they can live, work, and execute." At I/O, Google released Antigravity 2.0, a standalone desktop application designed around agent-first development. The gains are showing up beyond demos. Google says 3.5 Flash's agentic capabilities are already creating impact among partners, like banks and fintechs automating multi-week workflows, or data science teams finding insights in complex data environments. The model can run autonomously for multiple hours, though Tulsee Doshi, Google's senior director and head of product, said it will at times pause and ask for user input when it hits a decision point or permission issue that requires human judgment. When Google releases its forthcoming 3.5 Pro model, the two are designed to work in tandem. "3.5 Pro becomes your orchestrator, your planner, and then it actually can leverage Flash to be the various sub-agents," Doshi told TechCrunch. "I think it really comes down to where do you really want that reasoning power, where you actually want that larger model that can really push on the reasoning side versus where do you have tasks that really do merit good brute force tool use capabilities?" 3.5 Flash is now the default model in the Gemini app and in AI Mode in Search globally. At I/O, Google also announced agentic capabilities coming to Search, letting users create, customize, and manage AI agents directly on the platform. The new model will also power Gemini Spark, Google's new personal AI agent designed to run 24/7 to help consumers manage their digital life. Providing that level of AI capability for average consumers comes with scrutiny. Google is currently facing a lawsuit after a man nearly committed a mass casualty event and died by suicide following weeks of chatting with Gemini last year. The implications for harm only grow when making powerful autonomous agents available more broadly. Google says Gemini 3.5 has strengthened cyber and CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) safeguards and is better calibrated to engage with sensitive questions rather than refuse them outright. Gemini 3.5 Flash is available generally today via Antigravity, the Gemini API, and Gemini Enterprise, as well as through the Gemini app and AI mode in Search.

Google's New Gemini AI Model and Tools Are All About Agents Now

You'll be able to use those models in lots of different ways, including an OpenClaw-like 24/7 agentic assistant and an upgraded Antigravity coding platform. Here's what's coming in Gemini from Google I/O. The first new model, Gemini 3.5 Flash, rolls out to all users starting now. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told reporters during a briefing ahead of I/O that the model is "an incredible delight to use" and a "game changer" internally at Google. It's trained to operate quickly and accomplishes tasks at about half the cost of competitor models, he said. Gemini 3.5 Flash is particularly good at running agents -- autonomous AI instances that can handle particular tasks. That includes operating multiple agents at the same time to tackle larger, long-term projects. Koray Kavukcuoglu, CTO of Google DeepMind and Google's chief AI architect, said it can handle sessions lasting multiple hours on its own, completing whole coding research projects. Still to come is Gemini 3.5 Pro, which Pichai said Google has been testing internally. In what looks like a challenger to OpenClaw, the autonomous AI agent platform that blew up at the start of the year, Google is preparing an assistant called Gemini Spark. Josh Woodward, vice president for Google Labs, the Gemini app and AI Studio, said the company is releasing Spark "deliberately," with a group of trusted users getting access this week, followed by a beta for AI Ultra subscribers next week. Spark is an always-on AI agent that can act on your behalf and follow directions. It's based in Google's cloud -- so no need to buy one of those fast-disappearing Mac Minis to run OpenClaw -- and can perform tasks in Workspace apps like Gmail and Docs. "When you use it, it almost feels like you're tossing things over your shoulder, Spark's catching them and getting the job done," Woodward said. Google testers are using it to plan parties, track school schedules and monitor inboxes for questions, Woodward said. Google plans more connections over the summer so that Spark can operate a wider variety of third-party apps and websites through Chrome. Coding is one area where Google has lagged behind rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, which have thrived with Claude Code and Codex, respectively. Now Google has reimagined its platform, Antigravity, as an agent-first development tool. Google's vision for Antigravity goes beyond coding, however. The new direction is a "platform to develop and manage teams of autonomous AI agents," Kavukcuoglu said. That includes a standalone desktop application for Antigravity to serve as a home for agentic AI. The tasks for these agents can vary. Kavukcuoglu gave the example of one agent creating a website, another generating brand assets and a third planning products. Antigravity will also be available in the command line. With all of these agentic changes to Google's AI products, expect a big makeover for the Gemini app. Woodward said the app will include the new Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Omni models, along with a few new features. The new design, called Neural Expressive, includes a new set of animations, colors and haptic feedback when you tap buttons. Gemini will also respond with more images, timelines or visualizations when appropriate, Woodward said. Another feature, called the Daily Brief, is a personalized presentation of information Gemini's AI will collect based on your inbox, calendar tasks and other data. It will be available this week for Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US. Woodward described it as "a great way to introduce people to the power of agents."

The 5 biggest changes coming to Gemini

Google announced some big updates for its Gemini app during its annual I/O event on Tuesday. Though you might notice the redesign first, Google is also bringing two new AI models to Gemini and is testing out an always-on AI model that can complete tasks on your behalf. Here are all the biggest updates to Gemini announced at I/O. The latest version of Google's flagship AI model is coming to the Gemini app. Google says the new model, Gemini 3.5 Flash, is faster and more efficient than other leading AI models, while offering the ability to generate "richer, more interactive" web user interfaces and graphics. It also offers a "major leap forward" when it comes to coding useful AI agents, beating Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks, according to Google. This is just the first in the Gemini 3.5 family of models, as Google plans to launch 3.5 Pro next month. Along with a new model, Google is giving its Gemini app a bit of a makeover with its "Neural Expressive" design language. The revamped app has smoother animations, more vibrant colors, new typography, and haptic feedback that occurs when you tap buttons in the app. Google also reformatted Gemini's responses, which will now put the most important information at the top and include imagery, interactive timelines, narrated videos, and dynamic graphics. Google is making it easier to switch from typing text in the Gemini app to the voice-enabled Gemini Live mode, too, which will soon have new regional dialects. The Neural Expressive redesign is rolling out across the Gemini app on the web, Android, and iOS. Google is updating its Gemini app with a new kind of model that will eventually "create anything from any input." The first in the family, Gemini Omni Flash, will only allow you to generate videos to start using a combination of images, audio, video, and text. Google says Gemini Omni can create realistic-looking scenes with more accurate physics and can "reason" about what comes next. There's also a new Avatars feature that you can use to create videos with a digital version of yourself, using your own voice. You'll be able to edit Gemini Omni's output through conversations in the Gemini app. Gemini Omni Flash is rolling out to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app and Google Flow. It will also be available for free on YouTube Shorts and the YouTube Create App. Google is launching Gemini Spark, an "always-on" AI agent that performs work for you in the background while you complete other tasks. Gemini Spark is similar to OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent platform that took over the tech industry earlier this year. It can do things like send emails, scan monthly credit card statements for hidden subscription fees, or create a summary of your meeting notes. Gemini Spark runs on Gemini 3.5 Flash and can connect to Workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, along with third-party ones like Canva, Instacart, and OpenTable. The AI agent can also tap into local files on macOS using the Gemini app. Gemini Spark is rolling out to trusted testers this week, followed by a launch in beta for US-based Google AI Ultra subscribers next week. Google is bringing a new AI-powered agent to the Gemini app, called Daily Brief. It gathers information from the apps you've connected to Gemini, allowing it to put together a summary of your day with upcoming events from Calendar and updates you've received in Gmail. Google says Daily Brief will organize and prioritize its rundowns based on your goals, as well as provide feedback by giving its briefings a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Daily Brief is coming to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the US starting Tuesday.

Google updates its Gemini app to take on ChatGPT and Claude | TechCrunch

Google announced at its annual I/O event on Tuesday that the Gemini app is getting a series of new updates, including a "Daily Brief" feature, a redesigned interface, and access to a new AI video model called Gemini Omni. The updates signal Google's push to turn its Gemini app into an all-purpose AI hub rather than a standalone chatbot and to make the AI assistant more competitive with apps like ChatGPT and Claude. Google describes the new Daily Brief feature as a personalized digest designed to be your first stop each morning. It pulls together information from a user's inbox, calendar, and most important tasks, and then organizes them into a clear overview. The company says Daily Brief doesn't just summarize this information, it also prioritizes tasks and suggests next steps, with the most important items shown first. Daily Brief is rolling out today to Google AI subscribers in the United States. The Gemini app already has considerable reach; the company said it has more than 900 million users monthly and is available in over 230 countries and in more than 70 languages. But Google clearly wants more and without losing its existing customers. Google said it rebuilt the app from the ground up. Now, when users open the app, they'll see a new design language called "Neural Expressive," which brings fluid animations, vibrant colors, new typography, and haptic feedback. Gemini's responses are no longer presented as a wall of text, which is the case with most AI chatbots. Instead, key information appears in bold at the top. Additional text and possibly other elements such as images and timelines appear as the user scrolls down. The company's new AI video model, Gemini Omni, combines Gemini with Google's generative media models to create outputs grounded in knowledge. For example, you could give it a simple prompt like "claymation explainer of protein folding." The model lets you upload audio, images, and video to generate a consistent, high-quality video, according to Google. By adding access to a new video generation model like Gemini Omni, Google is intensifying competition among major AI platforms in the ongoing race to lead multimodal content generation. The model is rolling out to Google Flow and YouTube Shorts for Google AI subscribers, underscoring the company's broader push into multimodal content creation and AI-powered video tools.

Do Google's I/O AI Announcements Live Up to the Hype? I Put Them to the Test

Color me shocked that the Gemini AI chatbot was the main focus of Google's annual I/O conference. The company went all out, announcing the new Omni and 3.5 Flash models, a redesigned Gemini user experience, a next-level suite of AI image and video creation tools, and tons of new agentic functionality, among many other things. Not everything is live just yet, but I tried out what I found most intriguing among what's now available. Read on for my initial findings. Gemini's New Look Is Polished, Though Not Necessarily Better Neural Expressive is the design term Google uses to describe Gemini's new interface. I find it clean and sleek, giving Gemini a more modern feel than the familiar simplicity of ChatGPT or Claude. I appreciate some of what the new interface offers, such as its dedicated tab for generating images with Nano Banana, but other changes feel like a step back. For example, on the web, you no longer get a sidebar with past chats; you have to open a separate screen to scroll through them, which isn't nearly as convenient. Gemini's original interface was already straightforward and easy to use, so I don't see the adoption of the Neural Expressive design language as anything but a lateral move. I have similar feelings about Apple's Liquid Glass. I didn't have any issues with the preceding interface in either case, but perhaps you did. 3.5 Flash Model Delivers Serious Speed -- But at a Cost The newest version of Gemini's flagship Flash model, 3.5 Flash, is here, and it's just as capable and quick as the previous 3.1 Flash model at answering questions and searching the web. Still, it's hard to tell much of a difference between the two when running these relatively lightweight tasks. According to Google, the biggest improvements in 3.5 Flash are in the realm of coding. The company claims that the new model offers near GPT-5.5 intelligence, despite being far faster and more efficient. It's still early days in my testing, but so far, I can confirm that 3.5 Flash works significantly faster than GPT-5.5, completing coding tasks in a fraction of the time. However, I also noticed 3.5 Flash forgetting instructions and making mistakes much more than GPT-5.5. Perhaps most importantly, I ran out of my Gemini AI Pro plan's usage in just 15 minutes with 3.5 Flash, after which it told me I needed to wait six hours for my allotment to reset. The coding community seems to have similar feelings. Posts complaining about the punishing usage limits with 3.5 Flash and those impressed by the efficiency and speed of 3.5 Flash currently dominate the r/google_antigravity subreddit at the time of writing. Omni Actually Delivers on Its Creative Potential Omni is an all-new model capable of "creating anything from any input," according to Google. However, it's not immediately clear to me if Omni is genuinely new tech or just some amalgamation of 3.5 Flash, Nano Banana, and Veo. For example, in the new video tab of the Gemini interface, where Google tells me I can create with Omni, the actual model selection drop-down doesn't offer an option for Omni. Instead, it displays 3.5 Flash. Nonetheless, whatever underlying technology Omni leverages, it's fairly impressive. I uploaded a 10-second clip of me spinning my (impeccably crafted) Voruna in Warframe, alongside two concept art images from Doom 2016. Then, I asked Gemini to make a hype video with a fire-and-brimstone vibe. About a minute later, Gemini gave me the following: The video doesn't perfectly capture the character's look, but it makes a few changes to her armor and helmet and absolutely delivers on the spirit of the prompt in a remarkably cohesive video. What's more, it took only about a minute for Gemini to process my materials and generate the clip. Google Flow Makes AI Filmmaking Easier and More Conversational Omni is also now available in Google Flow, Google's filmmaking tool. In Flow, Omni is actually selectable as a model. As mentioned, Omni's ability to create videos from whatever you input is impressive, but its raw video quality doesn't strike me as meaningfully better than Veo 3.1's, which was already best-in-class. Omni has some unique limitations in Flow that Veo doesn't, as well. For instance, you can't extend Omni-created videos like you can with Veo-created clips. Outside of Omni support, Flow gains a dedicated AI agent. Essentially, you can turn the AI video generation process into a conversation with Flow's agent. This can be convenient, such as when I asked Flow to make some different versions of the video I created above. It followed up by asking if I wanted totally different styles or just different takes on the original with the same style before carrying out my request. Of course, I could have just prompted Omni to generate another video with the same style, sans Flow's agentic experience. Flow also has Tools now, which you can create and share. Think of Tools as multimedia-focused apps that exist within the Flow ecosystem. For example, I tried the Shot Explorer Tool, which lets you see images from different angles. I took a still from the video I created earlier (first slide) and used Shot Explorer to generate a version from a different angle (second slide). This worked without issue, and I see the potential usefulness of Tools, but they seem more about making what's already possible with Gemini easier rather than introducing anything truly new. Google's Biggest Gemini Features Haven't Even Arrived Yet All of the above is just a small subset of the new features and updates that Google plans for Gemini. A lot more is coming soon. Gemini Spark, for example, will be available to Gemini AI Ultra subscribers next week (and is coming to Chrome this summer). Google describes Spark as "your 24/7 personal agent" that's capable of working on tasks in the background, even if you turn your computer or phone off. I have mixed feelings about AI agents, but an agent that works in the background makes my historical problem with their speed at least a non-issue. Google also announced that AI agents are coming to Google Search this summer. The pitch sounds good. For example, you will be able to set up an AI agent to monitor the web for apartments that meet your criteria and get a notification when new listings are posted. However, how well these work and whether they can differentiate themselves from the many online services willing to notify you when certain things change or happen remains unknown. Lastly, Google plans to launch Pics this summer, a bespoke app dedicated to AI image editing, courtesy of Nano Banana tech. It's a top-notch AI model that won our Technical Excellence Award, so an app that integrates its core capabilities seems promising. However, whether Pics can truly compete with full-on photo editing apps is an open question. I'll continue testing and covering all the new Gemini features that roll out over the coming months, so make sure to check back for more.

Google touts its tokenmaxxing and capex spending amid AI orgy

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and doting parent company Alphabet, opened its Google I/O developer conference with a celebration of token and capital expenditures. Tokens are the basic data exchange unit of AI models and Google has vastly increased its token processing to accommodate internal and external demand for AI inference. Two years ago, Pichai said, Google handled 9.7 trillion tokens per month. Last year, it was 480 trillion per month. Currently, the Chocolate Factory handles 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month. "Now some out there might call this tokenmaxxing and there's probably some truth to it," said Pichai. "I still think it tells an important story about our products and how others are building as well, especially our developers." Pichai said over 8.5 million developers are building applications using Google's Gemini model family monthly, using about 19 billion tokens per minute in API calls. And over the past 12 months, more than 375 customers have consumed more than 1 trillion tokens each - an indication there's some demand for AI among businesses. That token processing is possible because of the vast capital expenditures Google has made in datacenters and compute capacity, and TPU hardware. "Supporting all of this at scale for our users while also serving enterprises and developers around the world requires massive investments in infrastructure," said Pichai. "And we've been investing for today and for the future. In 2022, we were spending $31 billion annually in capex. This year, we expect that number to be about six times that, approximately 180 to 190 billion dollars." Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, took a turn on stage to provide an update on Google's progress toward AGI - artificial general intelligence - that ill-defined point when AI models perform some set of tasks as well as a human. Gemini Omni, Hassabis suggested, is a step in that direction. It can, he said, "create anything from any input," meaning digital stuff as opposed to atomic replication. "It combines Gemini's intelligence with the best of our generative media models for a new level of world understanding, multimodality and editing," he explained. Gemini Omni combines video, image, and interactive simulation capabilities of models like Veo, Nano Banana, and Genie with physics modeling, so projects accurately depict object interactions involving kinetic energy and gravity. The first model in that family, Gemini Omni Flash, is now available. Pichai returned to announce an expansion of SynthID, Google's AI watermarking technology. Google, he said, will support C2PA content credentials verification across its products, to help people distinguish between content created by AI and by a camera, and to tell whether it has been edited with Google Photos. "We are expanding both SynthID and content credentials verification to Search and Chrome," said Pichai. "You can simply circle to search or right-click in Chrome and ask, 'was this generated with AI?' and you'll get a clear response along with other helpful context." To help make this technology more broadly useful, Google said OpenAI, Kakao and ElevenLabs have decided to adopt SynthID. Pichai went on to announce the next generation of its Gemini model family, Gemini 3.5 Flash. "When compared to 3.1 Pro, Flash is better across the board, in almost all benchmarks," he said, adding that the model has made "huge progress in coding," one of the more remunerative use cases for AI models presently. One of the major selling points of Gemini 3.5 Flash is that it offers comparable performance to other frontier models, but much faster. The model manages about 289 tokens per second, about 4x more than other frontier models, Google claims. Those using Google's coding harness Antigravity can look forward to even greater speed gains. "We've optimized Flash to be not just four times, but 12 times faster in Antigravity," said DeepMind engineer Varun Mohan, adding that the 2.0 release of Antigravity is out now. The other major selling point is price. "Top companies in Google Cloud are processing about 1 trillion tokens a day," said Pichai. "If they shifted 80% of their workloads from other frontier models to 3.5 Flash, they'd save over $1 billion annually." Gemini 3.5 Flash is also making its presence known in the Google Gemini app and in Search through its integration with Gemini Spark, an agent service. "It's your personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life, taking action on your behalf and under your direction," Pichai explained. "It runs on dedicated virtual machines on Google Cloud. And it's 24/7." Based on Gemini 3.5 Flash, with an assist from the Antigravity harness, Spark can perform long-running tasks in the background, presumably without incurring a huge token bill. Spark will be able to connect to other tools - Google apps initially like Gmail and Chat, then third-party tools via MCP. Chrome integration, which will enable agentic browsing, is planned for later this summer. Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, Gemini and AI Studio, described how he used Spark to arrange a block party, emailing neighbors, recording their responses in a spreadsheet, and creating a slide deck. This is rolling out now to trusted testers and to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US next week. Spark's arrival coincides with a new $100/month Ultra plan tier and the deflation of the top Ultra tier from $250/month to $200/month. Pichai offered up one of his timeworn phrases - "It's still the early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure, and truly helpful" - to gloss over the security and privacy implications of AI agents acting on user data and applications without supervision. Then he handed off to Liz Reid, VP of Search, who proceeded to detail further AI incursions into Google's Search service. Gemini 3.5 Flash, she said, has become the default model for AI Mode. And the Search box itself has been redesigned to surface AI-based suggestions and to facilitate inputs from modalities other than text, such as images, files, videos, and Chrome tabs. The biggest change is Search Agents, which like Gemini Spark will be accessible from Search and will run while you're away from the keyboard. "You can set information agents to work for you 24/7 in the background," said Reid. "They can find you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, and help you take action. You can spin up multiple agents in search simultaneously to get updated and make progress on all those things that matter to you." Google is also taking a page from Anthropic by offering code-based interactive widgets or mini-apps on demand. Search users will be able to create dynamic layouts, charts, graphs, and the like through the integration of Gemini 3.5 Flash and Antigravity in a containerized environment. This generative UI capability is rolling out this summer. Expect Google's token expenditures to continue to grow, along with pressure to purchase subscriptions to pay for the agentic labor. ®

Google launches Gemini 3.5 Flash to push AI agents deeper into enterprise workflows

The company says the model is faster and better suited to coding and agentic tasks, but analysts say its enterprise value depends on live workflow reliability. Google has launched Gemini 3.5 Flash, a new AI model designed to support agentic workflows across its products and enterprise platforms, as the company looks to move generative AI beyond chatbot-style interactions and deeper into business operations. The model, announced at the annual Google I/O developer conference, is available through the Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search, Google Antigravity, the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Gemini Enterprise.

Google I/O 2026: Everything We Expect and How to Watch

Google I/O gets underway Tuesday, May 19, at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET, and if there's one thing to expect, it's lots of AI. Google's Gemini AI is on deck for a major overhaul and could find its way into more places in our lives. We'll also get a rundown of how AI will touch Android Auto, Android XR, and Aluminum OS, Google's wholly Android-based desktop operating system, primed to make a big splash on Googlebooks. How to Watch the Google I/O 2026 Keynote Google I/O starts with a livestreamed keynote beginning at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET. Afterward, Google will stream the developer keynote at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET. Although the developer portion might sound like a snooze fest if you don't speak the technical language, it often delves a bit deeper into what's fully possible with the announcements Google made during the opening keynote. After the show, there are two days of programming. Developers and registered attendees of Google I/O are the first to access the sessions, though they'll eventually be uploaded to the official Google for Developers YouTube channel for others to watch later. Android 17: We Got an Earful Already Last year, Google broke with tradition and held a completely separate event for all Android-related developer news. On Tuesday, May 12, Google announced what's coming in Android 17 at the Android Show. We learned what's next for Android across all facets: on the phone, on wearables, in the car, and wherever else you're likely to encounter the little green bot. Android's "biggest update" might also signal the final shift from a mobile operating system to a product that's much more Gemini-forward. With these news bits out of the way, we're wondering if Google has any surprises in store for its I/O keynote. Gemini: Predictive AI is Next Gemini has been the main focus of the Google I/O keynote for the past few years. We're expecting to hear more about the large language model's proactive agentic capabilities, likely to be named Remy, after the main character in Pixar's Ratatouille. It's designed to act autonomously, like a personal agent that answers your emails and makes calendar entries for you without the initial input. Gemini is also expected to get a version number bump, along with a major overhaul that includes an interface refresh and a unified, native multimodal model that handles images, text, audio, video, and code within a single prompt. We're also expecting larger context windows, which will enable Gemini to analyze more data than before. Gemini's creative suite, which includes Veo, its video generator, and Lyria, its music generator, will have some dedicated time in the keynote. And iPhone users, there is talk that you may be graced with an overhaul of the Gemini mobile app for iOS. Android XR: The Debut of Smart Glasses (Again) Android XR was the scene-stealer at last year's Google I/O. This year, we're expecting to see the smart glasses make their official debut before the world, after being previewed just six months ago. Hopefully, it's the launch of XReal's Project Aura for developers. We'll likely get more details on when the Gentle Monster and Warby Parker collaborations will become available to everyone else. Aluminum OS: The Android Desktop Aluminum OS, the unified operating system that will effectively merge Android and ChromeOS, will have its official showcase at this year's Google I/O. The desktop operating system is built on the Android stack and offers a desktop experience that better supports Android apps and traditional computer things, like connected peripherals and windowing. The developer preview will reportedly go live after the keynote. We'll hear more about how Google is working with Qualcomm to make chips for these types of devices. During the Android Show, Google called this new class of hardware Googlebooks and said they will be "Gemini first." Odds and Ends: Search and the Home In Alphabet's Q1 2026 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai teased that there will be more to share "about search at I/O." Last year, the developer conference introduced us to Google Search's AI mode. Expect this year's announcements to focus on the Gemini 4 upgrade and what it means for multi-context search, as well as what's new with the company's custom-made Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), which help facilitate all the AI magic. What the rumor mill hasn't churned out much of is what's happening inside the smart home, particularly concerning that Google Home speaker that is supposed to be on sale this spring. Well, it's spring, and we're well past the equinox. Maybe Google was waiting for the stars to be properly aligned before setting the shop live. Hopefully, it's on sale at the Google Store once Pichai walks off the stage. Tune in with us on May 19. We'll be on the ground reporting what's next at Google I/O 2026.

Google's redesigned Gemini comes with a new interface and AI models - Engadget

The company is rolling out the redesigned chatbot on Android and iOS today. Google has announced several updates for the Gemini app at its I/O annual developer conference, including a design language called "Neural Expressive" that gives it a redesigned interface with new typography, more fluid animations and haptic feedback. The company has also integrated Gemini Live into the main Gemini experience. Currently, you'll have to tap the Live button in order to have spoken conversations with the AI, but the redesign will allow you to easily switch between typing and talking to the chatbot. Google is also introducing regional dialects for Gemini and designing its responses with imagery, graphics and even narrated videos, so it doesn't respond with walls of texts. The redesigned chatbot is now rolling out worldwide on Android and iOS. A new AI agent called Daily Brief will also be available starting today. If you opt in, Daily Brief will gather information from all your connected apps in the background, such as Gmail and Calendar, to give a summary of your activities for the day, as well as any communication waiting for you. In addition to giving you a quick overview of your emails and upcoming events, it can prioritize the things you have to do for the day based on your goals and will suggest the next steps you can take. You can train the agent to be more in line with your thinking by giving its responses a thumbs up or down. Daily Briefing is rolling out today, starting in the US, as part of Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscriptions. Google has also released a new model called Gemini Omni that combines text prompts, images and videos you upload to generate video output. You can change video backgrounds with a text prompt and apply effects, as well as built-in templates, to the output. If you want to insert yourself in videos, it can create an avatar the looks and sounds like you. The new model will be available today for all Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers. Another new agent is Gemini Spark, which the company describes as a "24/7 personal AI agent." It runs on Gemini 3.5 and is deeply integrated with Workspace apps like Gmail, Doc and Slides. It can also be linked other apps like Canva, OpenTable and Instacart. You can use it perform recurring tasks, such as poring over your credit card bills every month for hidden subscription fees. You can also create complete workflows from it. Spark can, for instance, create notes from information across emails and chats, write up a report on Google Docs and then draft an email from that information to create a new project. Spark is making its way to testers this week, before rolling out to Google AI Ultra beta subscribers in the US. Finally, Google is bringing Spark to the Gemini app for macOS this summer, along with new voice experiences. Even if you use filler words and expression while you speak, Gemini will be able to turn your speech into precise drafts that you can then use for your reports or emails.

Google announces slew of AI advances, including a personal AI assistant coming soon

Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf. "Agentic" AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company's announcements from the conference Tuesday. "We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "I've played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it's still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful." Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year's capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report. Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. Google's latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it's also about four times faster than some competitors. This model is now the default for the Gemini app and "AI mode" on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it's using internally and expects to launch next month. Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said. Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out. The company said Omni's videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics. Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App. All videos created with Omni will include Google's imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content. Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones. The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology's power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing "high-stakes" tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said. Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier. Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said. At last year's conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of "AI mode" on Google's search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform. AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google's head of search. The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete. Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available. The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called "a truly intelligent shopping cart." It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock. The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow. -- -- Associated Press Writer Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California contributed to this story.

Google debuts new AI models, personal AI agents in effort to keep pace with OpenAI and Anthropic

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Google I/O Developers Conference in Mountain View, California, US, on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. Google is rolling out its latest version of Gemini and a new artificial intelligence model designed to simulate the physical world, as the search giant races to keep pace in model development while also providing more agentic services to its massive user base. The company made the announcements at its annual Google I/O developer conference on Tuesday, gaining an audience for new product debuts at a time when the market has been focused on the soaring valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic, which are both gearing up for IPOs as soon as this year. The centerpiece of Google's AI strategy is Gemini, its family of models and tools. The company is showcasing Gemini 3.5 Flash, a lighter-weight addition to its suite that offers cutting-edge capabilities at half, or in some cases close to one-third, the price of comparable frontier models, according to CEO Sundar Pichai. In a news briefing with reporters ahead of Tuesday's event, Pichai said Gemini 3.5 Flash is "remarkably fast." The company said on Tuesday that 3.5 Flash will now be the default model for the Gemini app and AI mode in search globally. "You no longer have to trade quality for latency," Google said in a blog post. The company said that it's strengthened the cybersecurity defenses for Gemini 3.5 Flash, so it's "less likely to generate harmful content and mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries." Google said Gemini 3.5 Pro, its heavier-weight version, is being used internally, but won't be ready for wider distribution until next month. On the agentic AI front, Google announced Gemini Spark, a new general purpose AI agent in the Gemini app that can reason across information in connected apps. Google said it wants to help users navigate their digital lives by taking "action on your behalf while under your direction." Gemini Spark is in beta and will be available first to trusted testers and Google AI Ultra subscribers, starting next week. With more internet users gravitating to chatbots, Google is trying to convince traditional search users that it can be trusted to help them with tasks involving minimal input. Following the company's skyrocketing capital spending, Wall Street is looking for Google to show it can create deeper integrations across its products, and agents could be a way to do that. Expectations for AI companies continue to grow, particularly in light of Anthropic's recently released Mythos model, which was said to be so powerful that it's found thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities in the world's software infrastructure. Google's AI portfolio now includes Omni, a world model designed to simulate physical environments, predicting what happens next based on a user's actions. World models are often used in robotics and gaming and have been heavily researched by DeepMind through the years. Omni will work in Flash, the Gemini App, Google Flow and YouTube shorts, supporting image and audio, the company said, adding in a separate blog post that users can make Omni edit videos and create more realistic imagery. "Take a video you shot and just ask Omni to change what's happening," the post says. The AI can "edit the action, add in new characters or objects."

Google turns Gemini into a proactive AI agent with Spark, Daily Brief, and a major redesign

Gemini Omni is also coming to the Gemini app as a new multimodal model that can generate and edit cinematic videos from text, images, and clips. Google just announced one of the biggest overhauls to the Gemini app yet at Google I/O 2026, introducing a redesigned interface, proactive AI agents, and a powerful new video generation model called Gemini Omni. The company claims Gemini is now used by more than 900 million people across 230 countries and territories, making it "the most widely available generative AI tool in the world." As part of its latest push to make Gemini even more powerful, Google is now evolving the chatbot into a more proactive assistant that can actively help manage your digital life. The biggest visible change to the Gemini app is a new design language Google calls "Neural Expressive." The refreshed interface is already rolling out to users and introduces fluid animations, updated typography, vibrant colors, haptic feedback, and a more dynamic presentation style. Google says Gemini will now generate responses with richer formatting, including images, summaries, bolded text, interactive graphics, timelines, and even narrated videos to avoid showing users giant walls of text. Google says it is also fully integrating Gemini Live into the core Gemini experience. Users can now switch seamlessly between typing and natural voice conversations without breaking context. The company says it also redesigned the microphone experience so users can speak naturally without interruption, and that support for regional dialects is coming soon. The Gemini app's Neural Expressive redesign starts rolling out globally today across Android, iOS, and the web. At I/O 2026, Google also introduced Gemini Omni, a new multimodal model focused on video creation. Omni has been doing the rounds on the internet lately, and can combine text, images, and video prompts to generate high-quality cinematic videos. Google says users will be able to access Omni straight from the Gemini app. Users can upload footage from their camera roll and edit it using natural language prompts rather than traditional editing tools. Google also says users will be able to create AI avatars that look and sound like them. Gemini Omni is also rolling out today to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers worldwide. Beyond the Neural Expressive redesign and Omni, Google's big upgrades to Gemini also include two brand new AI agents -- Daily Brief and Gemini Spark. As the name suggests, Daily Brief is a personalized digest that summarizes your day using information from your calendar, reminders, travel plans, and more. It's a feature Google previously attempted to launch as Daily Hub on the Pixel 10 series, but removed due to poor user feedback. Google describes Gemini's Daily Brief as a morning briefing experience that prepares you for the day ahead. It is launching today inside the Gemini app for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the US. The second, and more ambitious, feature is Gemini Spark. Google describes Spark as a 24/7 cloud-based AI agent that can proactively handle tasks on your behalf even after you close your laptop or lock your phone. Powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash, Spark deeply integrates with Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, and Slides. Google shared examples like parsing credit card statements to identify hidden subscriptions, monitoring school emails for deadlines, creating daily digests for families, and even automatically turning scattered meeting notes into polished Docs and draft emails. Spark can also create recurring workflows and triggers. Google says users remain in control, and Spark will ask for permission before taking high-stakes actions like spending money. Speaking of which, Google has created a new Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to help agents like Spark make secure payments on your behalf. The company says it will start bringing AP2 to Google products in the coming months, starting with Spark. Gemini Spark rolls out to trusted testers this week, with a beta launch for US Google AI Ultra subscribers expected next week. Google is also expanding Gemini's connected app ecosystem through new integrations launching today with Canva, OpenTable, and Instacart. Spark will eventually use those integrations to complete tasks across these services. Additional capabilities planned for later this year include Chrome integration, texting and emailing Spark directly, custom sub-agents, and local browser control. Finally, Google confirmed that its macOS Gemini app is getting deeper Spark integration and new voice capabilities, allowing Gemini to work more directly with local machine workflows.

Google Gemini gets Daily Brief, Neural Expressive redesign at I/O 2026

The Gemini app now has 900 million monthly users, and Google is betting a personalised daily digest, a sweeping redesign, and a persistent AI agent called Spark will keep them coming back. Google used the opening keynote of I/O 2026 to unveil a wave of updates to its Gemini app, headlined by a feature called Daily Brief, a personalised morning digest that pulls from a user's inbox, calendar, and task list to deliver a prioritised overview of the day ahead. The feature does not merely summarise, it also suggests next steps, surfacing the most pressing items first. Daily Brief is rolling out today to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the United States. The update arrives as Gemini's user base has grown sharply. Google said the app now serves more than 900 million monthly active users across more than 230 countries and 70 languages, up from roughly 400 million at last year's I/O. That figure makes it, by Google's own accounting, the most widely available generative AI tool in the world. Alongside Daily Brief, Google introduced a new design language for the Gemini app. Dubbed Neural Expressive, the refresh brings fluid animations, vibrant colour palettes, new typography, and haptic feedback. Responses are no longer presented as walls of text. Instead, key information is bolded at the top, with the option to scroll for deeper detail. When relevant, inline images, narrated videos, timelines, and interactive visualisations appear in place of prose. The redesign is rolling out now on Android, iOS, and the web. It also folds Gemini Live, the voice conversational interface, directly into the core experience, allowing users to switch between typing and speaking without breaking context. For Google, the overhaul is an attempt to make AI interactions feel less like querying a search engine and more like consulting an assistant that understands presentation as well as content. The most ambitious addition is Gemini Spark, a cloud-based AI agent built on the new Gemini 3.5 Flash model. Spark is designed to handle tasks proactively across Gmail, Docs, and other connected Google services, and, crucially, it continues working even after a user locks their phone or closes their laptop. Because it runs on Google Cloud infrastructure, no device needs to stay active. Spark will be available as a beta to trusted testers this week and to US-based Google AI Ultra subscribers starting next week. Ultra itself has had a price adjustment, dropping from $250 per month to $100, a move clearly intended to sharpen Google's competitive position against OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. The $100 Ultra tier includes five times the usage limits of the $20 AI Pro plan, 20 terabytes of cloud storage, YouTube Premium, and beta access to Spark. Google also announced Gemini Omni, a new AI video model that accepts images, audio, and text as inputs to generate video. Omni had already been spotted in the Gemini interface earlier this month, when a UI string referencing the model leaked ahead of I/O. The model is expected to roll out to Google Flow and YouTube Shorts, giving creators multimodal video tools directly inside platforms they already use. The Omni announcement slots into a broader arms race in AI-generated video, where Google is competing not only with OpenAI but also with ByteDance's Seedance and other emerging players. Early assessments suggest Omni excels at prompt adherence and in-chat editing, though its raw generation quality in the initial Flash tier may lag behind some rivals. Taken together, the updates signal that Google is shifting Gemini from a reactive chatbot into something closer to a proactive personal operating system. Daily Brief handles the morning routine, Neural Expressive makes the interface less clinical, and Spark promises to keep working autonomously around the clock. The approach mirrors what Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is pursuing with his own AI agent ambitions, and what OpenAI has been telegraphing with its operator-style features. Whether 900 million users will embrace a morning briefing from their AI assistant, or whether Spark's autonomous task execution will raise more privacy questions than it answers, remains to be seen. But with Google now embedding Gemini into everything from factory robots to mobile apps, the company is clearly betting that the future of AI is not a single chatbot but an interconnected layer that runs across every surface of daily life.

Google claims Gemini 3.5 Flash runs 4x faster than frontier models

Google expanded its artificial intelligence ambitions at Google I/O 2026 with the launch of Gemini 3.5 Flash, a faster AI model designed for coding and autonomous task execution. The company also introduced Gemini Spark, a personal AI agent, and Gemini Omni, a multimodal video generation model capable of producing polished videos from different forms of input. The announcements reflect Google's broader push to turn Gemini into an ecosystem of AI products spanning consumer services, enterprise software, and developer tools. The company increasingly focuses on AI systems that can complete actions and workflows rather than simply respond to prompts.

Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash rivals 'large flagship models' for coding and agentic tasks - Engadget

It can complete tasks in a "fraction of the time" of other frontier models, Google claims. Google has unveiled Gemini 3.5, starting with the Gemini 3.5 Flash model that promises to outperform Gemini 3.1 Pro in real-world agentic and coding tasks. "3.5 Flash delivers frontier-level intelligence at exceptional speed -- proving you no longer have to trade quality for latency." Announced at Google I/O 2026, this will be Google's default AI model (not to be confused with Flash-Lite), designed to deliver better speed than the current Gemini Pro models at a more affordable price. The tradeoff is lower performance than the 3.5 Pro model (coming next month) in tasks that require deep reasoning and high-context understanding. However, Google has reduced the compromise between the Pro and Flash models, saying Gemini 3.5 Flash "delivers intelligence that rivals large flagship models on multiple dimensions." It outperforms the current Gemini 3.1 Pro model on coding and agentic benchmarks like Terminal-Bench 2.1 (76.2 percent), MCP Atlas scaled tool use (83.6 percent) and multimodal understanding with 84.2 percent on CharXiv Reasoning. From an output tokens-per-second standpoint, it's four times faster than other frontier models, according to Google. All of that makes 3.5 Flash ideal for long-horizon agentic tasks, completing what used to take weeks in "a fraction of the time," Google wrote. "Under supervision, it can reliably execute multi-step workflows and coding tasks while sustaining frontier performance." It added that partners, including banks and fintechs, have used it to automate multi-week workflows. Google noted that 3.5 Flash is now the default model for the Gemini app and for AI Mode in Search worldwide. The personal AI agent Gemini Spark, rolling out to testers today, also runs on 3.5 Flash. At the same time, Google said it strengthened Gemini 3.5's cyber and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) safeguard so it's less likely to generate harmful content (or mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries). Google detailed the new model's enhanced agentic coding capabilities in a new blog post. Gemini 3.5 Flash is now "generally available via Google Antigravity, the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Gemini Enterprise. It's also now available to everyone in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search," Google said. There's no word yet on pricing for paid tiers. As for Gemini 3.5 Pro, Google said: "It's already being used internally, and we look forward to rolling it out next month."

Gemini app rolling out 'Neural Expressive' redesign, 3.5 Flash, 24/7 Spark agent, & Daily Brief

At I/O 2026, Google announced major updates to Gemini across the underlying model and new app features. The Gemini app now has over 900 million monthly active users. Neural Expressive redesign Neural Expressive is the Gemini app's new design language with fluid animations, vibrant colors, haptic feedback, and new typography. The Gemini app redesign starts with a pill-shaped prompt box. On mobile, there's just a 'plus' menu that opens a bottom sheet with a carousel of upload options at the top. You get Photos, Camera, and then your recent images. You have to scroll down to "More uploads" for Files, Drive, and Notebooks. Your Tools appear next: Guided learning, Deep research, Canvas, Create music, Create video, Create image, and Personal Intelligence. On the other side, you'll find voice input and Gemini Live. The latter no longer opens a fullscreen interface for an inline experience where you don't have to explicitly switch between modes. You get a waveform housed in a centered pill. That's flanked by video and screen sharing on the left, while the right side has mute and close. The background now makes use of a gradient, with a Gemini logo and greeting at the center. Temporary chats is at the top-right corner, with Google moving the account switcher. The model picker is back in the top-left as a dropdown. Gemini's navigation drawer is now a fullscreen interface, with the thinner icon set on display here: New chat, Search chats, Library (previously My stuff), and Gems, which you can no longer quickly access. Notebooks and Recent round out this menu. At the bottom, you'll find a profile picture and settings gear to open the usual account menu. As part of Neural Expressive, responses will no longer be walls of text. Instead, Gemini will design responses that show the most important information at the top and in bold. When relevant, you'll see inline images, narrated videos, timelines, and interactive visualizations. The Gemini app's Neural Expressive redesign is rolling out now to Android, iOS, and the web. Gemini 3.5 Flash Gemini 3.5 Flash combines frontier intelligence with the ability to perform actions/agentic tasks. It surpasses Gemini 3.1 Pro in coding, agentic, and multimodal benchmarks. However, it accomplishes this while retaining the speed of the Flash series (4x faster than other frontier models in terms of output tokens per second) and at lower costs. Gemini 3.5 Flash is about a third to a half cheaper. * Terminal-Bench 2.1: 76.2% * GDPval-AA: 1656 Elo * MCP Atlas: 83.6% * CharXiv Reasoning: 84.2% Gemini 3.5 Flash is rolling out starting today in the Gemini app, Search, Google Antigravity 2.0, and the Gemini API. Gemini 3.5 Pro will be available next month with the same focus. Gemini Omni Omni is a new model that combines Gemini's reasoning capabilities with creation. It lets you "create anything from any input," starting with video output. The input can be images, audio, video, and text. What's generated is grounded in real-world knowledge and can be easily edited via text. In the Gemini app, you can upload any photo or video and edit with built-in templates. A new custom AI avatar that looks and sounds like you can be dropped into an action scene. Gemini Omni (Flash) begins rolling out today to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers worldwide. Gemini Spark Gemini Spark is described as "your personal agent" that takes actions on your behalf to help "navigate your digital life." Running on dedicated Google Cloud virtual machines, it works 24/7 and can be accessed on any device via the Gemini app. It will soon be accessible via emailing and texting, as well as through Chrome. On mobile, it will be accessible in a new interface called Android Halo that shows live updates and task progress. Gemini Spark will have you confirm high-stakes actions like sending emails or spending money. Spark represents a big shift for Gemini, transforming it from an assistant that can answer your questions into an active partner that does real work on your behalf and under your direction. Spark is powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash with the full Google Antigravity harness to perform "long horizon tasks" that write code. It integrates with Google's first-party services, like Gmail, Docs, and other Workspace apps, before expanding to other third-party tools via MCP over the summer. * Set recurring tasks or triggers: Automatically parse monthly credit card statements to flag new or hidden subscription fees. * Teach it new skills: Direct it to check your inbox for ongoing updates from your kids' school, extract critical deadlines and send a consolidated daily digest to you and your partner. * Create complete workflows: Ask it to synthesize raw meeting notes across emails and chats, create polished Google Docs with its findings and even draft the companion email kicking off a project. Gemini Spark will be available next week to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US. It's accessible in the navigation drawer with new "Chat" and "Spark" top tabs. Spark is also coming to the Gemini app for Mac this summer. It will be able to perform tasks involving local files and "automate workflows across your desktop." Google also teased a new voice experience: You won't have to worry about all the "ums" or "what abouts" that happen as you think aloud. Using the context from your screen, Gemini can turn your free-flowing speech into precise drafts, instantly reformatting the text to capture your intent, right where your cursor is. Daily Brief Daily Brief is an agent that offers a personalized digest of the day ahead based on the CC Google Labs experience that Google started testing last year. Google notes how Daily Brief is doing more than just summarizing by actually prioritizing, organizing, and suggesting the next steps. Available in the side panel, you'll get an update every morning with what you need to do. The "Top of mind" section shows actions you need to accomplish imminently. Shortcuts underneath each item let you create reminders, view messages, or draft replies. There's also a "Looking ahead" section after that. Gemini is working overnight to gather information on your day ahead by analyzing your Gmail, Calendar, and Tasks for what's coming up. Daily Brief is rolling out to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra starting today in the US. $100 and $200 Google AI Ultra Finally, Google AI Ultra now starts at $99.99 per month to access all these new features, while a cheaper $200 plan provides access to Google's highest limits.

Google just launched Gemini 3.5 Flash -- here's all the upgrades

It looks like Google is preparing "Gemini Spark" to turn AI into an Operating System Google's vision for AI is undergoing a massive shift. Today, Google introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash as the latest in their family of models combining frontier intelligence with action. The faster and smart model delivers frontier performance for agents and coding, while excelling at complex long-horizon tasks that deliver real-world utility. This launch marks a next-generation leap, one that's built entirely around "agentic workflows." According to Google, the company wants AI to stop behaving like a chatbot you constantly have to manage, and start acting more like an invisible digital layer that can independently complete complex tasks from start to finish. The next wave of AI at a glance One thing Google has made clear: Gemini 3.5 is built for action rather than simply conversation. Instead of simply generating text or summarizing information, Gemini 3.5 Flash is designed to execute multi-step workflows, maintain software projects, prepare documents, coordinate "subagents" and handle longer-running tasks with far less human oversight. According to Google, the model outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on several coding and agentic benchmarks, including Terminal-Bench 2.1 and MCP Atlas, while also dramatically reducing response latency. That's incredibly important because AI agents often feel frustratingly slow. While tools from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta can already perform surprisingly advanced workflows, many still feel clunky when juggling multiple steps, browsing tools, or reasoning through complex tasks. Google promises that Gemini 3.5 Flash removes that tradeoff between reasoning power and responsiveness. Google Spark proactively assists with workflows But today, Gemini Spark may be the even bigger story. The persistent AI agent designed to quietly run in the background, takes actions on your behalf while remaining under your supervision. According to Google, Spark can proactively assist with workflows, coordinate tasks and function more like an always-on digital layer than a standalone chatbot. Trusted testers will receive access first, with a broader rollout to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. expected next week. The industry has swifty moved beyond building the smartest chatbot to building the most capable AI Agent that becomes the invisible operating layer for your digital life. This includes options such as managing schedules, organizing documents, automating repetitive work, coordinating apps and eventually making decisions with minimal prompting. A dramatic shift from where AI was even a year ago The first wave of generative AI was about proving models could generate human-like responses. The next phase is about turning those models into autonomous systems capable of executing tasks across your digital environment. That's why terms like "agentic AI," "subagents" and "ambient intelligence" are suddenly appearing everywhere across Silicon Valley. With AIG, safety concerns are often top of mind. But Google plans to emphasize safety and says Gemini 3.5 was developed under its Frontier Safety Framework, including expanded cyber and CBRN safeguards designed to reduce harmful outputs while minimizing unnecessary refusals on safe prompts. That balancing act has become increasingly important as AI systems become more autonomous and capable of taking real-world actions. Additionally, the company also confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro -- the larger and more capable version of the model family -- is already being used internally and is expected to launch publicly next month. If Gemini 3.5 Flash is about proving speed and responsiveness, Gemini 3.5 Pro may ultimately show how far Google believes autonomous AI systems can actually go. Bottom line Gemini 3.5 Flash is generally available today via the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search. With this launch, the company is betting that the future of AI isn't a tool you constantly open and prompt, but an always-present system quietly managing the chaos of digital life in the background. And after years of AI being framed as a smarter search box, that may be the biggest shift yet. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok.

Gemini 3.5 Flash is here: Google's smartest speed model promises better coding and agents

Gemini 3.5 Flash is rolling out globally as the default model for billions of users in the Gemini app and Google Search. Gemini is one of the best AI models around, with each release being widely applauded for pushing the envelope of what end users can achieve with AI. Google released Gemini 3 in November 2025, followed by Gemini 3.1 in February 2026. Today at Google I/O 2026, Google is releasing Gemini 3.5 to the world, starting with Gemini 3.5 Flash, which is already rolling out to billions of users globally. Google says the latest Gemini 3.5 family of AI models combines frontier intelligence with action. This means users can expect these models to not only execute advanced reasoning and deep logical thinking, but also move towards autonomously executing long-horizon tasks. The balance of speed and performance makes Gemini 3.5 Flash ideal for tackling long-horizon agentic tasks. It can rapidly plan, build, and iterate to solve real-world problems, whether it's developing new applications, maintaining codebases, or preparing financial documents. Gemini 3.5 Flash also generates richer, more interactive web UIs and graphics. Google says that Gemini 3.5 as a whole is less likely to generate harmful content and mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries. Google achieves this with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, including interpretability tools that help check and understand the AI's inner reasoning before it responds. Gemini 3.5 Flash is available today to billions of people globally through the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search, where it is the default model. For developers, Gemini 3.5 Flash is available in Google Antigravity (Google's agentic development platform) and in the Gemini API for Google AI Studio and Android Studio. It is also available to enterprise users via the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Gemini Enterprise. Google is also using Gemini 3.5 Flash in Gemini Spark, a personal AI agent that runs 24/7 to help you navigate your digital life, taking actions on your behalf under your direction. Gemini Spark is rolling out to trusted testers today, with a wider beta arriving for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US next week. Google also mentioned that it is already hard at work on Gemini 3.5 Pro. Employees are using the Pro model internally, and Google hopes to roll it out next month.

Google launches Gemini 3.5 Flash, its fastest agentic AI model for coding | TNW

Somewhere inside Google's campus, an AI agent recently built an operating system from scratch. Not a toy demo, not a sanitised benchmark exercise, but a full OS assembled by software agents spawning off to handle separate components before stitching everything together. That, at least, is what Google showed the world at I/O 2026 on Monday, and it wants the demonstration to mark a turning point: the moment its AI stopped being a chatbot and started being a builder. The model behind the feat is Gemini 3.5 Flash, which Google is calling its strongest model yet for coding and autonomous AI agents. According to Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind's chief technologist, Flash "outperforms our latest frontier model, 3.1 Pro, on nearly all benchmarks," including coding, agentic tasks, and multimodal reasoning. The company says the model is four times faster than competing frontier models, and that an optimised version pushes that figure to 12 times faster with equivalent quality. Speed is the point. When agentic AI systems run in production, they do not take turns. Multiple agents operate simultaneously on long-running tasks, and latency becomes a bottleneck that compounds with every parallel process. Google has built Flash specifically for that environment, co-developing it alongside Antigravity, the company's agentic development platform and IDE. On stage at I/O, Google engineer Varun Mohan demonstrated the OS-building exercise inside Antigravity. Agents spawned to work on separate components, each handling a distinct piece of the system, before converging to assemble the whole. It was the kind of demo designed to make developers rethink what "coding assistant" means, and Google leaned into the implication: this is not autocomplete with ambition. It is autonomous software engineering. Google released Antigravity 2.0 alongside the model. The update turns the platform into a standalone desktop application built around what the company calls "agent-first development," a native environment where AI agents can, in Google's phrasing, "live, work, and execute." The tool includes a CLI for terminal-first developers, an SDK for custom agent behaviours, and integrations with Google AI Studio, Firebase, and Android. Flash can run autonomously for multiple hours, according to Google, pausing to request user input only when it reaches a decision point or permission boundary that requires human judgment. That design sits in deliberate tension: the model is built for independence, but it is also built to know when to stop and ask. Tulsee Doshi, Google's senior director and head of product for the Gemini model, outlined the broader architecture. A forthcoming 3.5 Pro model will serve as the orchestrator and planner, while Flash handles the sub-agent work. The division is instructive. Google is not building a single all-powerful model; it is building a hierarchy of specialists, with Pro thinking and Flash doing. Partners are already testing the approach. Banks and fintechs are reportedly automating multi-week workflows, and data science teams are using Flash agents to surface insights that previously required manual investigation. Google has not disclosed specific client names or quantified results, so those claims remain difficult to independently verify. The launch signals a broader strategic pivot. Google is no longer positioning its AI primarily as a conversational interface. Flash is the default model in the Gemini app and powers AI Mode in Search globally. It also underpins Gemini Spark, the new personal AI agent that runs around the clock on Google Cloud infrastructure, handling tasks across Gmail, Docs, and more than 30 third-party integrations. The timing matters. Vibe coding and AI-assisted development have moved from novelty to production tooling in the span of a year, and every major lab is racing to claim the agentic layer. OpenAI, Anthropic, and a growing roster of startups are building competing agent frameworks. Google's bet is that raw speed, tight integration with its own cloud infrastructure, and a purpose-built IDE will give Flash an edge that benchmarks alone cannot capture. The release also arrives under a shadow. Earlier this year, a lawsuit alleged that a man nearly carried out a mass casualty event after extended interactions with Google's Gemini chatbot. Google says it has strengthened cyber and CBRN safeguards for the 3.5 generation and improved calibration for sensitive questions. Whether those measures are sufficient is a question regulators and courts, not just engineers, will ultimately answer. Gemini 3.5 Flash is available now through Antigravity, the Gemini API, Gemini Enterprise, the Gemini app, and AI Mode in Search. The agentic era Google has been promising since Cloud Next has, it seems, arrived in earnest. The question is no longer whether AI can write code. It is whether anyone, human or otherwise, can keep up with how fast it is learning to build.

Google's new Gemini Omni AI can turn almost anything into video

The company's latest AI model aims to combine reasoning, media generation, and editing into one system * Google introduced Gemini Omni Flash * It aims to make video creation easier by letting users refine projects naturally, rather than using editing software * It's emphasizing transparency and safety through AI watermarking and identity protections Google's next big AI move is aimed squarely at creativity. The company has introduced Gemini Omni at Google I/O 2026 as part of its massive slate of new Gemini features. Omni is supposed to combine Gemini's reasoning abilities with media creation tools that can generate and edit content across different formats. The first release, Gemini Omni Flash, focuses on video and arrives with an unusually ambitious goal. Google wants people to create content from nearly any kind of input, whether that starts with text, images, audio, or existing video. Gemini Omni Flash is rolling out through the Gemini app, Google Flow, YouTube Shorts, and YouTube Create, with broader expansion planned later for developers and enterprise customers. The announcement builds on work Google has already been doing with AI-generated visuals. In 2025, Nano Banana expanded Gemini's image capabilities and became a surprisingly practical tool for everything from restoring aging photographs to turning rough sketches into polished concepts. Gemini Omni is Google's attempt to push that idea much further. The company described Gemini Omni as a way to replace tradational editing software with a conversation that can continually refine a video. Conversational editing One of Gemini Omni's biggest ideas is removing complexity from editing. Google says users can modify videos through natural language while preserving consistency between changes. Characters stay recognizable. Scenes maintain continuity. Motion remains coherent instead of resetting every time a prompt changes. The system is also designed to better understand how objects behave in the physical world, incorporating improved handling of motion, gravity, and movement dynamics. That's how the mirror above ripples like liquid when someone touches it, or how a sculpture can be made of bubbles. Google is trying to position Gemini Omni as something larger than a video generator. That puts Google directly into a rapidly escalating competition around AI media tools. But it's a race about who can make AI video tools feel intuitive enough that ordinary people actually want to use them, as much as anything else. Google's answer appears to be taking the conversational route. Eventually, Google said Gemini Omni will go beyond video. Future versions are expected to support combinations of photos, prompts, music, and reference footage into a single project. Trusting AI creations Powerful creative AI creates a challenge of trust, which Google acknowledged. The company is keen to highlight how videos created with Gemini Omni include SynthID watermarking technology intended to identify AI-generated media. The company also says verification tools will work across Gemini, Chrome, and Search as part of broader transparency efforts. Users will initially be able to create video avatars based on themselves, including their own voice. But more advanced capabilities involving speech modification remain under evaluation while Google works on safety considerations. That cautious approach reflects the increasingly awkward balancing act facing every major AI company. Building more capable systems doesn't mean trust in them will be built in tandem. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Gemini can now make videos, brief your morning, and do digital chores while you sleep

Google I/O 2026 This story is part of our complete Google I/O coverage Updated less than 2 minutes ago Google is giving the Gemini app a massive update, bringing a bunch of nifty changes. The chatbot phase is fading, and the company now wants Gemini to become something closer to a full-time digital assistant. During Google I/O 2026, the company announced a redesigned Gemini app along with a new model, proactive daily summaries, video tools, and a 24/7 agent called Gemini Spark. Google claims that Gemini has now reached more than 900 million monthly users across 230 countries and more than 70 languages, up from 400 million last year. Gemini Omni gets even better The flashiest feature is Gemini Omni, Google's new model for creating cinematic video outputs from text, images, and video prompts. Users can apply zooms, swap backgrounds, use templates, and even create a custom AI avatar that looks and sounds like them. It starts rolling out today for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers worldwide. Gemini Spark is your personal AI agent Gemini Spark is another highlight. It is a cloud-based agent that can keep working after you close your laptop or lock your phone. The company stated that Spark can parse monthly credit card statements for hidden subscription fees, track school emails for deadlines, and turn meeting notes into polished Docs with a drafted follow-up email. For high-stakes actions like sending emails or spending money, Gemini Spark will ask the user before proceeding. It rolls out to trusted testers this week, with a US Google AI Ultra beta planned next week. There's also Daily Brief, which pulls from Gmail and Calendar to build a personalized morning digest with priorities and next steps. This feature also appears similar to Samsung's Now Brief. Recommended Videos As of today, the macOS app is also available with Spark. Google also plans to bring new features later this summer. With this announcement, it's clear Gemini is no longer just answering prompts. That's not all, the company has just added AI agents to Google Search, unveiled Pomelli to help build your brand, and even showcased WearOS 7. There are a bunch of other announcements, so you can check out our coverage of Google I/O 2026 by clicking here.

I/O 2026

At Google I/O 2026, we shared how we're making AI more helpful for everyone. We're releasing two new models, Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5. Gemini Omni can create anything from any input, starting with video, and is a leap forward in world understanding, multimodality and editing, while Gemini 3.5 Flash is the first in our latest family of models combining frontier intelligence with action. With advancements to Google Antigravity, our agent-first development platform, we've moved beyond AI tools that just help us write, to agents that help us act. Thanks to these agents, now anyone can be a builder. We're unlocking agents and agentic experiences across our products -- like with Information agents in Search, Gemini Spark and Daily Brief in the Gemini app and the launch of Universal Cart, a truly intelligent shopping cart. And we're continuing to scale Gemini across our products as well, from Google Pics to intelligent eyewear to Ask YouTube, creating new experiences and expanding to new form factors.

Google Releases Gemini 3.5 Flash Frontier Model Focused On Agentic AI

Gemini 3.5 Flash model is rolling out today to all users globally, for free. It wouldn't be a Google I/O keynote without a new frontier AI model. At I/O 2026, Google finally revealed the Gemini 3.5 family to the world, starting with Gemini 3.5 Flash. As you'd expect, it's the latest and greatest model from Google, designed to work across a slew of Google products like the Gemini app, Android, and Google's Antigravity coding platform. Google says that the latest frontier model is designed especially for complex agentic workflows. You won't need to wait for Gemini 3.5 -- at least not for Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google's frontier free model. It's rolling out today in the Gemini app, as well as Google Search's AI Mode. Developers can also access the 3.5 Flash model via Antigravity and Gemini API in Google AI Studio. Google I/O's keynote and all the new AI features announced today are based on the 3.5 Flash model. Google was surprisingly quiet about the Gemini Pro model, but the company said it is testing it internally, and it will be rolled out next month. According to Google, Gemini 3.5 Flash outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks like Terminal-Bench 2.1 (76.2%), GDPval-AA (1656 Elo), and MCP Atlas (83.6%), and leads in multimodal understanding (84.2% on CharXiv Reasoning). When it comes to output tokens per second, the new model is four times faster than other frontier models. Gemini 3.5 Flash's biggest enhancement comes in long-running and complex agentic workflows. Google has worked with partners and enterprise customers across fintech and data science teams to hone the agentic AI capabilities of the 3.5 Flash model. When it comes to agentic AI for regular consumers, Gemini 3.5 Flash will enable agentic browsing in Google Search's AI Mode and Gemini Spark, Google's new personal AI agent. In AI Mode, Google is starting off with information agents. These agents work in the background, 24/7, collecting information for you. The agents can scour the web for news articles, social media posts, and tap into Google's real-time data for finance, sports, and shopping. For example, you can use search agents to notify you when your favorite athlete collaborates with your favorite sneaker brand for an exclusive drop. These features will be available for free across the globe. Google is also testing Gemini Spark with select users, with a beta coming to Google AI Ultra subscribers next week (limited to the U.S.). Gemini Spark is a personal intelligence agent that works 24/7 in the background. It can even take actions on your behalf while under your direction. AI Mode will also include coding agents that can generate mini-apps and interactive dashboards for you on the fly, right in the Search interface. Google had a bit of a moment with Nano Banana 2.0: Image generation improved significantly, especially with text. Now, Gemini Omni can create media based on different kinds of input modalities. Google is starting off with video generation. In one prompt, you can combine images, audio, video, and text sources and use it to generate high-quality videos. Google will also let you edit videos in the same conversation. Google will start rolling out Gemini Omni Flash to the Gemini app, YouTube Shorts, and Google Flow. Right now, it can only generate videos, but Google will add support for image and audio outputs down the line.

Google announces slew of AI advances, including a personal AI assistant coming soon

Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf. "Agentic" AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company's announcements from the conference Tuesday. "We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "I've played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it's still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful." Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year's capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report. Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. Google's latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it's also about four times faster than some competitors. This model is now the default for the Gemini app and "AI mode" on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it's using internally and expects to launch next month. Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said. Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out. The company said Omni's videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics. Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App. All videos created with Omni will include Google's imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content. Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones. The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology's power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing "high-stakes" tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said. Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier. Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said. At last year's conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of "AI mode" on Google's search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform. AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google's head of search. The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete. Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available. The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called "a truly intelligent shopping cart." It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock. The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow.

Google I/O 2026: Gemini Intelligence, Googlebooks, Android XR glasses, and what to expect from the keynote

Google I/O 2026 begins on Monday at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, and the company has already shown much of its hand. The two-day developer conference, which runs 19-20 May with a keynote at 10 a.m. PT, is expected to formalise a set of announcements that Google began rolling out a week early through a pre-recorded Android Show on 12 May. The headline items, Gemini Intelligence, Googlebooks, Android XR glasses, and Android 17, collectively represent the most aggressive integration of AI into Google's consumer products since the company pivoted to an AI-first strategy in 2023. The centrepiece of Google's pre-I/O announcements is Gemini Intelligence, a suite of agentic AI features that move Gemini from a chatbot interface into the operating system itself. Rather than waiting for users to open a separate app, Gemini Intelligence is designed to operate across apps, understand screen context, and complete multi-step tasks autonomously. Google's demonstrations showed the system finding a class syllabus in Gmail, identifying the required textbooks, and adding them to a shopping cart, all without the user switching between applications. Additional features include Smart Autofill, which uses Gemini's contextual understanding to populate form fields across apps and Chrome; Rambler, a speech-to-text tool that removes filler words and restructures dictated text into coherent sentences; and Create My Widget, which lets users describe a custom widget in natural language and have Gemini generate it on the spot, pulling data from Gmail, Calendar, web searches, and other Google services. The features will roll out this summer on the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices, with expansion to watches, cars, glasses, and laptops later this year. Google is framing Gemini Intelligence as a new category of AI integration, not a feature bolted onto existing software but an intelligence layer that runs underneath Android. The approach is a direct response to Apple's forthcoming AI-powered Siri reboot, expected at WWDC in June, and to the broader competitive pressure from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other companies building agentic AI systems. Whether Gemini Intelligence delivers on the promise of autonomous task completion will depend on execution, but the ambition is clear: Google wants its AI to be the default way users interact with their phones. The EU is already preparing to force Google to open Android to rival AI assistants under the Digital Markets Act, which may complicate that ambition in Europe. The second major announcement is Googlebooks, a new category of premium Android-powered laptops that effectively replace Chromebooks. The devices run Aluminium OS, a version of Android 17 rebuilt as a desktop operating system with a custom window manager, native multitasking, and Gemini embedded at the operating system level. Google has killed the Chromebook, or at least rebranded it into something more ambitious. Googlebooks will ship this autumn from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Key features include Magic Pointer, which turns the cursor into an AI agent capable of performing actions on screen, and the same Create My Widget system available on phones. The devices will support Android apps natively and can stream phone apps from a paired smartphone. The move resolves a strategic question that has lingered for more than a decade: whether Google would merge Android and ChromeOS into a single platform. Reports of a unification effort date back to at least 2015, and Google experimented with various bridges, including running Android apps on ChromeOS, before arriving at the current approach of rebuilding Android for desktop use. Whether Aluminium OS can compete with Windows and macOS in the enterprise remains an open question, but Google's pitch, AI-native computing from the ground up, is at least differentiated. Google has confirmed it will preview Android XR smart glasses at I/O 2026, offering a first look at consumer-ready Gemini-powered eyewear. The glasses are equipped with cameras, microphones, and speakers, and work in tandem with a paired Android phone. An optional in-lens display provides contextual information privately, and Gemini 2.5 Pro powers real-time translation, navigation, messaging, and visual understanding. Google has lined up hardware partners including Samsung, Warby Parker, Gentle Monster, and XREAL, a strategy designed to offer glasses across a range of price points and styles. Samsung is expected to launch its Galaxy Glasses this year, building on the Galaxy XR headset that already runs Android XR. The breadth of the partnership network suggests Google is positioning Android XR as a platform play rather than a single-product bet, aiming to do for smart glasses what Android did for smartphones. The competitive context is significant. Meta has sold more than seven million Ray-Ban smart glasses and controls roughly 82 per cent of the market. Apple, Google, and Snap are all preparing rival products, each with cameras, raising privacy questions that the industry has not resolved since the original Google Glass backlash in 2013. Google's bet is that Gemini's contextual AI capabilities, combined with a multi-brand hardware ecosystem, can offer a compelling alternative to Meta's head start. Android 17, currently in beta, will receive significant stage time at I/O. Google has previewed 3D emoji (branded Noto 3D), enhanced Find Hub features with biometric security and the ability to mark devices as lost, and new operating system verification tools. Some rumours suggest Google may introduce iOS-style blur and glass effects across parts of the interface, though no major UI overhaul is expected. Google also announced a wireless iPhone-to-Android transfer tool, a feature that directly targets users considering a switch from Apple. Pause Point, a tool designed to interrupt mindless scrolling by prompting users to take a break, and expanded Android Auto features with Material 3 Expressive design, widgets, video app support, and Dolby Atmos were also among the pre-I/O reveals. The keynote itself is expected to address Gemini model updates. While it is unclear whether Google will announce Gemini 4.0 or another 3.x iteration, multiple reports suggest a major capability overhaul is planned, potentially to compete with OpenAI's GPT-5.5. Google Search, Chrome, and Workspace integrations are also likely to feature prominently, along with updates to the company's cloud and developer tools. The keynote livestream begins at 1 p.m. ET on 19 May and will be available on Google's official I/O website and YouTube channel. In-person registration is full, but the event is free to watch online. Developer sessions and workshops continue through 20 May. The volume of pre-announcements, Gemini Intelligence, Googlebooks, Android XR glasses, Android 17 features, suggests that the keynote will focus less on individual product reveals and more on a unified narrative: Google is embedding AI into every surface it controls, from phones to laptops to glasses to cars. The question is whether that narrative translates into products that work as advertised. Gemini's rollout has not always been smooth, and Google's track record with new hardware categories, from Google Glass to the Pixel Tablet, is mixed. But the scope of what Google is attempting at I/O 2026, turning its AI into the default operating layer for an entire device ecosystem, is the most consequential strategic bet the company has made since Android itself.

Google I/O 2026 made one thing clear -- Gemini is becoming impossible to avoid

Google's AI push turns Search, Android, shopping, and productivity into one giant Gemini ecosystem * Google used I/O 2026 to unveil a sweeping expansion of Gemini. * Gemini is expanding across Search, Android, shopping, productivity, and AI agents. * New features like Gemini Spark, Omni, and AI-powered Search show Google pushing hard toward always-on AI assistants. Google spent years insisting AI would quietly improve its products in the background. At Google I/O 2026, the company finally stopped pretending subtlety was still the plan. Google is trying to turn Gemini into the connective tissue for nearly everything people do online. Google clearly does not intend to let that future happen somewhere outside its own products. The difference is that Google already owns the digital spaces where people spend most of their day. Instead of asking users to switch platforms, it can simply inject Gemini into the tools they already open constantly. Faster brains, bigger ambitions Google's biggest technical announcements centered on the new Gemini 3.5 family and Gemini Omni, which the company framed as a major step toward AI "world models" capable of understanding and generating information across multiple modalities simultaneously. Gemini 3.5 Flash is Google's workhorse model. The company repeatedly emphasized speed, lower cost, and efficiency, claiming Flash outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on most benchmarks while running four times faster than competing models. Google also stressed that the model is dramatically cheaper than many rival premium AI systems. That pricing narrative matters because AI is quietly becoming very costly to operate at scale. OpenAI, Anthropic, and other companies continue raising the ceiling on reasoning capabilities, but they are also steadily training users to accept increasingly expensive subscriptions. Gemini Omni was the more futuristic reveal. Rather than separate systems handling images, video, audio, and text independently, Omni combines them into one multimodal model designed to reason across everything at once. Google demoed the system editing uploaded videos, changing visual styles, generating AI avatars, and reasoning about multimedia content in ways that blur the line between traditional AI assistants and creative production tools. The company framed Omni as the evolution beyond standalone video generators like Veo, but the broader industry context makes the strategy clear. There is a clear parallel here with OpenAI's own increasingly multimodal direction for ChatGPT. The entire industry is racing toward AI systems that can fluidly move between voice, visuals, reasoning, and action without obvious boundaries between them. Google now appears determined to build the same kind of unified AI layer, only on a Google scale. Gemini's non-stop Spark If Gemini 3.5 showed off Google's technical muscle, Gemini Spark revealed what the company actually wants people to do with it. Spark is essentially a cloud-based AI agent that continues working after users close their laptops or lock their phones. It can organize inboxes, draft emails, manage calendars, and pull information from Workspace apps in the background. Google suggested it could help with things like organizing a chaotic schedule, building study guides from incoming assignments, or watching for customer emails. This is very much where the wider AI industry is heading. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are all racing toward agentic systems capable of independently completing tasks rather than simply responding to prompts. The difference is that Google already owns much of the surrounding ecosystem that those agents need to function effectively. Spark does not need to ask users to connect separate apps because many of the services are already deeply integrated into Google accounts people have used for years. Android Halo, the visual interface designed to show Spark's ongoing activity, only reinforces the sense that Google wants AI agents to become persistent digital coworkers constantly humming away in the background. Helpful, certainly. Also slightly uncanny. That said, Spark also captures the slightly unsettling direction the industry is heading. Systems like this only work if users hand over enormous amounts of context. Emails, calendars, documents, habits, contacts, schedules, and browsing behavior all become part of the machine's understanding of your life. Gemini redefined Google also redesigned the Gemini app itself. The new "Neural Expressive" interface adds richer visuals, animations, timelines, haptic feedback, and conversational layouts designed to make Gemini interactions feel more natural and less like typing into a sterile chatbot box. Gemini Live conversations now start almost instantly. The broader goal appears to be reducing friction between having a thought and acting on it through AI. Docs Live, for example, allows users to verbally brainstorm ideas while Gemini organizes them into structured documents in real time. Google also plans to extend conversational voice features into Gmail and Keep, further embedding AI into ordinary productivity workflows. This mirrors a broader shift happening across the industry. OpenAI pushed ChatGPT toward natural voice conversations and persistent memory because users increasingly prefer AI that feels conversational rather than mechanical. Google seems to have reached the same conclusion. All search is AI Search may be where Google's AI transformation becomes most consequential. The new AI Search Box, upgraded AI Mode, Information Agents, and generative interfaces all point toward Google rebuilding Search into something more conversational and interactive. Instead of simply returning lists of links, Search can now generate custom widgets, visual explainers, and mini applications directly inside results pages. This feels like a direct response to how ChatGPT and similar AI tools have changed user expectations. People increasingly want direct answers and interactive experiences rather than pages filled with blue links. Google understands that if users migrate toward standalone AI assistants for discovery and planning, Search risks losing its central role in the internet economy. That creates an uncomfortable tension. Google's AI search tools may genuinely improve usability, but they also fundamentally reshape the web ecosystem Google originally helped build. Publishers, creators, and websites increasingly worry that conversational AI answers reduce incentives for users to click through to original sources. Google insists these systems still support the broader web, although the long-term balance remains uncertain. The AI shopping battle The shopping announcements sounded less dramatic than Gemini Omni, but they may ultimately matter more to Google's business. Universal Cart, Universal Commerce Protocol, and Agent Payments Protocol all point toward a future where Gemini becomes an active shopping intermediary rather than a passive recommendation engine. Google wants AI systems capable of tracking prices, monitoring deals, spotting compatibility issues, managing carts across retailers, and eventually making purchases on users' behalf. The company demoed examples like AI identifying incompatible PC components before checkout, monitoring inventory changes, tracking credit card perks automatically, and watching for price drops in the background. AP2 adds spending controls, merchant approvals, and transparent transaction records to reassure users that AI agents will not suddenly empty their bank accounts without notice. Again, this is not happening in isolation. Amazon, OpenAI, and other companies are all exploring AI shopping assistants because commerce is one of the clearest paths toward turning consumer AI into a sustainable business. Google's advantage is obvious. Search already dominates product discovery for huge portions of the internet. Gmail contains receipts and order histories. YouTube influences buying behavior constantly. Gemini can potentially connect all those systems together into one giant commerce layer. Google's I/O announcements revealed just how deeply committed to Gemini the company is. The company is trying to make AI inseparable from modern computing itself. Search, Android, shopping, communication, and more are all now being built around AI. For Google, the strategy makes perfect sense. If AI becomes the next major computing platform, the company wants Gemini sitting at the center of it. Whether users eventually find that convenient or intrusive is less obvious. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Gemini App Getting So Many Crazy New Features

To no one's surprise, today's Google I/O keynote was all about AI, Gemini, and how it will potentially change our lives by making us more productive or by allowing Gemini to do things proactively, for us. Gemini truly is getting a handful of major changes and features that could end up doing a lot for you. There's a new app UI, new Gemini Flash 3.5 model, a Daily Brief, and a feature that Google is calling Gemini Spark. There's a lot to run through, so stick with us. We've always been a sucker for a good UI overhaul and Google gave us that for the Gemini app today. This was seen a few days ago, but it's official and rolling out on both Android and iOS as you read this. Google is calling this new UI its "Neural Expressive" design and it is stunning. They describe it has having "fluid animations, vibrant colors, new typography and haptic feedback." It also just has these really cool colorful gradients and designs behind actions and the main bar in the app. If this is the future of Google design, I'm here for all of it. A new tab within the Gemini app is called Spark and it's basically your new AI assistant with a lot of power. Google wants you to think of Spark as your assistant that transformed from simply answering questions "into an active partner that does real work on your behalf and under your direction." What does that mean? Initially, Spark will work through all of your connected Google apps to handle several tasks for you, sometimes at the same exact time depending on what you've asked from it. Here are 3 ideas that Google shared today that Spark can do: Did you catch all of that? In one of those examples, Google suggests you have Spark run through your inbox to see what's going on at your kids' school, pull out all of the critical deadlines, and then send them out as a consolidated daily digest to both you and your partner. That's pretty wild stuff. Spark takes what you've requested, could break it down into several different tasks, and does all of it in the background while you move on about your day. If you happen to be juggling multiple tasks or events at a time, this could be incredibly handy. Because we use more than just Google apps, Google also announced today that it is partnering with all sorts of additional services to make it even more powerful. Services like Instacart, Uber, Zillow, Dropbox, and Adobe are all on the list. For now, Gemini Spark will begin rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers (boo!) "next week" in beta. Next up, we have the Gemini Daily Brief, an agent that will give you a personalized morning digest that you might actual look to every day. Should you opt-in to it, Gemini connects everything in the background and then surfaces upcoming events from Calendar, finds urgent updates from Gmail, and then puts them together in an easily digestible briefing. It's a lot like how Google CC works (we love Google CC). The new Daily Brief should start rolling out today to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the US. Finally, so much of this is powered by Gemini Flash 3.5, which Google says "The first in our next generation of models that combines frontier intelligence with lightning-fast action."

Gemini 3.5 Flash is Google's new default AI model, and it's built to act, not just answer

Announced at I/O 2026, the model is designed to handle complex, multi-step workflows and is now live across Google's consumer, developer, and enterprise platforms. Google has long positioned Gemini's Flash models as the faster, cheaper alternative to its flagship Pro tier. However, that changes with Gemini 3.5 Flash. Announced at I/O 2026, the new model outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks, with Google claiming that it delivers four times the speed of comparable frontier models, "often at less than half the cost." Built for agents Gemini 3.5 Flash is designed for long-horizon agentic tasks, i.e., workflows that require AI to plan, build, and iterate across multiple steps. Google says it can handle tasks that previously took developers days or auditors weeks, in a fraction of the time. Specific benchmark scores include 76.2% on Terminal-bench 2.1, 1656 Elo on GDPval-AA, and 83.6% on MCP Atlas. The model also scores 84.2% on CharXiv Reasoning, a multimodal understanding benchmark. The model works with Google's Antigravity, an agent-first development platform, to deploy multiple subagents in parallel, enabling it to tackle more demanding workloads. On the consumer side, 3.5 Flash is now the default model powering the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search. It also powers Gemini Spark, a new personal AI agent Google announced at I/O that runs around the clock to take action on a user's behalf. Google is rolling Spark out to trusted testers now, with a broader beta planned for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US next week. Rollout and availability Gemini 3.5 Flash is available now globally in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search for consumers, and through Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, and Android Studio for developers. Enterprise customers can access it via both the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Gemini Enterprise. Google has also confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro is in internal testing and expected to roll out next month. Recommended Videos The release puts agentic capability at the center of Google's AI roadmap. Rather than competing purely on which model can answer questions more accurately, Google is betting that the next stage of AI is about models that can take actions like booking appointments, writing and running code, managing workflows, and more, all with minimal input from the user. With Gemini 3.5 Pro due next month, it'll be great to see how far Google plans to push that vision.

Google launches Gemini 3.5 Flash as its default AI model

Google has launched the Gemini 3.5 Flash model, claiming it surpasses the previous Gemini 3.1 Pro in coding and agentic tasks. The announcement was made during Google I/O 2026, where Google described the model as delivering "frontier-level intelligence at exceptional speed," aiming to minimize the tradeoff between quality and latency. Gemini 3.5 Flash will serve as Google's default AI model, designed to provide improved speed over existing Gemini Pro models while being offered at a lower price point. However, it is reported to have reduced performance compared to the forthcoming Gemini 3.5 Pro model, particularly in tasks requiring deep reasoning and high-context understanding. The 3.5 Flash model outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro in several benchmarks, achieving scores of 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1, 83.6% on MCP Atlas scaled tool use, and 84.2% on CharXiv Reasoning. Google stated that the model can achieve output at four times the speed of other frontier models in terms of output tokens-per-second. This capability makes Gemini 3.5 Flash well-suited for long-horizon agentic tasks, significantly reducing the time needed to complete complex processes. According to Google, it can reliably execute multi-step workflows and coding tasks under supervision, with real-world applications already seen in automation of multi-week workflows by partners in the banking and fintech sectors. Gemini 3.5 Flash is now integrated as the default model for the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search globally. The personal AI agent, Gemini Spark, which is being rolled out to testers, operates on the 3.5 Flash model. Additionally, Google has enhanced cyber and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) safeguards within Gemini 3.5 to reduce the likelihood of generating harmful content. The new model is generally available via Google Antigravity, the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, and the Gemini Enterprise platform. It is also accessible to all users in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search. No details have been released regarding pricing for the paid tiers of the model. Google confirmed that the Gemini 3.5 Pro model is already in internal use and is expected to roll out next month.

Google announces slew of AI advances, including a personal AI assistant coming soon

Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf. "Agentic" AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company's announcements from the conference Tuesday. "We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "I've played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it's still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful." Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year's capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report. Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. The latest version of Gemini is here Google's latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it's also about four times faster than some competitors. This model is now the default for the Gemini app and "AI mode" on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it's using internally and expects to launch next month. Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said. Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out. The company said Omni's videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics. Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App. All videos created with Omni will include Google's imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content. A 24/7 agent Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones. The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology's power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing "high-stakes" tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said. Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier. Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said. More AI in search and shopping At last year's conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of "AI mode" on Google's search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform. AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google's head of search. The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete. Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available. The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called "a truly intelligent shopping cart." It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock. The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow. -- -- Associated Press Writer Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California contributed to this story.

Gemini Is Getting a UI Overhaul and Embracing Its Agentic Side

Google's Gemini app is getting an overhaul, in terms of both design and function. At Google I/O 2026, the company announced Gemini is getting upgraded models that will lean more into agentic AI capabilities, which allow the assistant to send emails, add calendar events, and perform other actions on your behalf. (Google does emphasize that all agentic capabilities are designed to be used under your supervision, which hopefully allays fears of the agent going rogue and, I don't know, draining your bank accounts.) Here's is everything Google announced about Gemini's app upgrades during this year's event. Google says it has revamped the design language for the Gemini app. The company calls it Neural Expressive, and it includes new animations, colors, typography, and refreshed haptic feedback. Another change: The Gemini Live conversational experience is now integrated into the Gemini app. This means you can easily switch from typing your questions to using your voice to talk to the AI. There are also changes to the voice chat mode, allowing you to tap and talk to Gemini at your own pace. This prevents unwanted interruptions and doesn't force you to keep speaking at a certain speed if you need more time to frame your thoughts, according to Google. You'll soon also have an option to ask Gemini to speak in regional dialects, which can offer a more personalized experience to some people. I think the best part of Neural Expressive design is Google's focus on making interacting with Gemini look like something more than a wall of text. The company claims Gemini will now show responses with images, interactive timelines, narrated videos, and dynamic graphics, instead of just huge blocks of text. This new design language is rolling out today and will be available on the web, Android, and iOS. Gemini Spark marks Google's big play on agentic AI services. It transforms Gemini from a simple word generator into an assistant that can take actions for you. This feature works even if you've switched off your laptop or phone, and it can continue to work independently based on your requirements. Some examples Google shared during I/O 2026 include the ability to set recurring tasks or triggers, such as scanning your credit card bills to flag new or hidden subscription fees, go through your meeting notes to create a "polished" document in Google Docs with a summary of its findings, and drafting a companion email to kickstart a project. Google says you'll also be able to teach Gemini Spark to pick up on deadlines for school projects and share them with your spouse, which could allow you to keep a tab on your child's schoolwork without actively monitoring their inbox every day. It's worth noting that Google's repeatedly emphasized the fact that Spark works on your commands. You'll have to choose which apps it can connect to, and it'll only take high-stakes actions with your explicit consent, whether that's spending money or sending an email. Gemini Spark is rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. next week, but it will be available to "Trusted Testers" this week. Google also said that Gemini Spark will is coming to the Gemini app for macOS later this summer, allowing you to automate workflows involving local files on your computer. Gemini is getting a new morning digest feature called Daily Brief, which works only if you opt in to receive it. The service accesses your Gmail inbox and your calendar to give you an overview of what's ahead in your day. Google says this feature will prioritize your tasks based on your goals, and suggest the next steps you should take to tackle upcoming tasks. You'll have the ability to tune the AI service's feedback by giving it a quick thumbs up or down in the app. The Daily Brief feature is rolling out in the U.S. starting today, and it'll be available to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers. In a move to fill the void left by OpenAI's shuttering of Sora, Google is launching Gemini Omni, which allows you to combine text, images, and video inputs to generate videos. The company claims Omni makes it easy to edit videos using conversational inputs, such as swapping out backgrounds or applying cinematic zoom effects. You'll be able to upload footage from your camera roll and use Omni to apply built-in templates to create videos quickly without needing editing software expertise. There's also an option to create a custom AI avatar that looks and sounds just like you, and drop this avatar in your videos. This feature does suggest a few ethical concerns, since it sounds like it would make it easy for a person with malicious intent to generate deepfakes. While it's nice to see that video editing is becoming more accessible, generating videos with real people's faces is in a grey area, and I hope that Google has strong guardrails in place to safeguard against abuse. Gemini Omni is rolling out starting today to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers across the globe.

Google's new "Neural Expressive" AI mode fixes the biggest issue I have with Gemini

Sara Heritage is a tech and gaming journalist, who's currently making her way up to Master Ball rank in Pokemon Champions. Bylines in IGN, GAMINGbible, The Gamer and more. You can usually find her tinkering with tech, or restoring old consoles, always with one of her 3 cats nearby. Come and talk with her over on Twitter @SHeritageJourno. * Neural Expressive: dynamic visuals, interactive PDFs, timelines, and videos replace text-heavy answers -- rolling out now. * Gemini 3.5 Flash: faster, smarter LLM; Gemini Omni blends text, images and video to generate high-quality video. * Daily Brief and Gemini Spark give personalized morning briefs and 24/7 agentic help; Gemini Live now switches smoothly. Google I/O 2026 has brought us a flurry of major updates for Gemini AI. There's a lot of talk around the cinematic power of the all-new Gemini Omni, to the lightning-fast Gemini 3.5 Flash. But there's one feature that's caught my eye, and it could solve the biggest issue I have with Gemini. That could all be about to change with its new "Neural Expressive" update. Gemini isn't as useless as it was when you tried it two years ago AI that I first despised is now my Google Assistant replacement. Posts 3 By Keval Shukla What is Google Gemini's Neural Expressive Update? Neural Expressive is a vibrant, dynamic and completely reimagined design language for Gemini. This means that its interface now features fluid animations, vibrant colors, new typography and haptic feedback. Before, Gemini would provide the answer, but you had to scan, filter, and manually unpack paragraphs of monotone text to find actionable insights. Gemini, perhaps more than any other AI I've experienced, loves to pad out its insights with fluff. Neural Expressive directly tackles this problem by shifting Gemini away from text generation and toward real-time, dynamic design. Instead of blocks of text, you'll get nicely formatted PDFs. You'll get interactive timelines, narrated videos and dynamic graphics. This is far more intuitive and is a great tool for those who process information visually, like me. Neural Expressive is rolling out globally today across the web, Android and iOS for everyone. What else is new for Gemini at Google I/O 2026? Neural Expressive isn't the only thing to come out of Google I/O 2026. Let's start with Gemini 3.5 Flash -- the first next-generation LLM model, promising to be smarter and faster than ever before. If you use AI to create videos, Google also announced Gemini Omni, a new model that seamlessly combines text, images and video inputs to generate stunning, high-quality video outputs effortlessly. If you own a Google Home device, you might've noticed Gemini rolling out over the past few weeks. Now, Google has announced Daily Brief, available today for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers in the US. This new agent gives you a personalized morning brief and organizes exactly what you need to know to start your day. This works seamlessly with Gemini Spark, a new agentic 24/7 personal AI designed to proactively manage tasks and help you navigate your digital life. Last, but by no means least, there are major improvements to Gemini Live. Now, you can seamlessly switch from typing a quick question to diving deep into a free-flowing conversation -- and back again -- without missing a beat. But maybe best of all -- the clunky mic controls have finally been fixed! All these updates, combined with Neural Expressive, means Google Gemini is well worth checking out nowadays.

Google Brings More Refined Aesthetics to the Gemini App - Phandroid

If there's anything to say about this year's I/O conference, it's that Google pretty much didn't hold back when it came to all things AI. The company unveiled a ton of new announcements, including big changes to the Gemini app, both in terms of form and function. It's clear that Google's overhaul of the Gemini app steers it away from a traditional text-heavy chatbot, and goes toward a more interactive, media-rich assistant as seen with Gemini Spark. In addition to agentic functions, the update also brings a newly developed design language which Google refers to as "Neural Expressive." This replaces the standard chat log layout with a more fluid interface featuring vibrant colors, updated typography, and integrated haptic feedback for mobile devices. Instead of delivering standard walls of text, the app now structures information in a more dynamic manner, with responses formatted in real time to include key data, embedded imagery, interactive timelines, narrated videos, and dynamic graphics to simplify complex information. Google has also fully integrated Gemini Live into the main chat, which will let users to transition immediately between typing and natural voice conversations without losing context. Additionally, improvments to audio capture now allow users to speak and pause naturally while working through complex ideas without being prematurely cut off by the assistant. Google plans to introduce localized regional dialects to the platform in the near future, giving users more choices for their preferred AI voice.

Google Announces Slew of AI Advances, Including a Personal AI Assistant Coming Soon

Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf. "Agentic" AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company's announcements from the conference Tuesday. "We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "I've played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it's still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful." Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year's capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report. Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. The latest version of Gemini is here Google's latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it's also about four times faster than some competitors. This model is now the default for the Gemini app and "AI mode" on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it's using internally and expects to launch next month. Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said. Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out. The company said Omni's videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics. Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App. All videos created with Omni will include Google's imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content. A 24/7 agent Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones. The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology's power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing "high-stakes" tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said. Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier. Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said. More AI in search and shopping At last year's conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of "AI mode" on Google's search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform. AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google's head of search. The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete. Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available. The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called "a truly intelligent shopping cart." It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock. The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow. -- -- Associated Press Writer Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California contributed to this story.

Google IO 2026: Here's Everything That Was Announced During the Event

* Google now processes 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month * Google has launched the Gemini 3.5 Flash model * The Google AI Ultra plan has been revised Google I/O 2026, the latest edition of the Mountain View-based tech giant's developer conference, was hosted by the company on Friday. During the keynote, Google's head Sundar Pichai announced various new AI features and tools for Google products. Moreover, the company executive revealed the number of tokens the tech giant is now processing per month to provide AI-generated results for its users, which is up seven times from the same month last year. On top of this, the tech giant has introduced more Gemini-powered tools across its products, including YouTube, Gmail, and Search. The company has also released its latest Gemini 3.5 Flash model. Google IO 2026 Announcements, Updates During the Google I/O 2026 developer conference, Pichai revealed that Google now processes more than 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month, which is claimed to be a seven times increase from the same period last year. For reference, the tech giant was processing 480 trillion tokens per month by May 2025, while processing 9.7 trillion tokens per month in the same period in 2024. Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini Omni, Gemini Spark Moreover, the company has also unveiled its Gemini 3.5 series models, starting with the Gemini 3.5 Flash, which is currently available to all users globally in the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search. Meanwhile, developers can use the model in the Antigravity platform and in the Gemini application programming interface (API) via the AI Studio and Android Studio. Meanwhile, the company plans to release the Gemini 3.5 Pro model next month. The new Gemini 3.5 Flash model is claimed to be four times faster than comparable frontier models. Meanwhile, it is positioned to cost significantly less in AI costs. Google claimed that Gemini 3.5 Flash was able to generate an operating system in 12 hours. Coming to Google's new video generation model, Gemini Omni can combine multimodal inputs into a single prompt to generate a video. The tech giant highlighted that users can input a reference video, image, text, and audio input within a prompt, explain the shot and the camera angle, and Gemini Omni will generate a video for them. It is now available to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra users globally via the Gemini app and Google Flow. Additionally, Google has also launched the new Gemini Spark tool, which is positioned as the company's new "personal AI agent". Powered by Google's Gemini 3.5, the new tool is reportedly capable of taking action on a user's behalf and performing "long-running" tasks in the background. Users do not have to keep their devices open to keep the agent running, as it runs on dedicated virtual machines on Google Cloud. It will be integrated into other Google tools, too. New AI Features in Google Workspace Google's Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Keep are getting upgraded with the new AI tools, allowing users to initiate natural language queries. Users can ask Gemini in the Google Workspace apps to brainstorm on a topic of their choice or organise their thoughts using text and voice commands. Additionally, the company is also integrating Gemini Spark into these platforms. The features will be rolled out to users in the summer. Moreover, Google Pics has been introduced as the tech giant's image creation and editing tool, which is powered by Google's Nano Banana model. It is capable of object segmentation, text editing, and translation. Google Pics will be available in Google Workspace platforms. Lastly, the company is explaining the AI Inbox functionality in Gmail to Google AI Plus and Pro subscribers with new features like personalised draft replies and instant file access, along with the ability to mark individual tasks as done, dismissing unhelpful suggestions, and marking all emails in a given topic as read with a single click.

The most important announcements from Google I/O | Stuff

Google made an incredible number of announcements at Google I/O - most of them Gemini-related. Here's the pick of what was revealed Google I/O 2026 is in the books and the company has dropped a slew of announcements. Most of them pertain to Google Gemini AI. However, the company also announced Wear OS 7 and new Google and Samsung smart glasses. Here's the best of the rest. We'll have deep dives into the biggest news coming on Wednesday morning. Google Search AI mode will no longer simply be a side quest, it's becoming the total package. The Search box is getting its biggest upgrade in 25-years Google says. Google says the new intelligent search box will put the most powerful AI tools at the user's fingertips, powered by the brand new Gemini 3.5 update. Users will be able to search across modalities, meaning you can ask questions based on images, files, videos or Chrome tabs. Those using AI mode will be able to ask follow up questions too. Check it out in the video below. Google is adding Search agents, which will work around the clock in the background to ensure you can find all the information you need in the right moment. "So if you're apartment hunting, you can brain dump all of the exact requirements you're looking for, and your agent will continuously scan for you, notifying you when listings meet your needs," Google says. The agentic coding capabilities of Gemini 3.5 are coming to Search, while Google is expanding Personal Intelligence in AI mode. That means you can connect apps like Gmail, Photos and Calendar to enhance your search. Google is launching a new shopping hub, which works across merchants and services. Users will be able to add items to a single cart whether they're browsing the web or watching YouTube. "The moment you add a product to your cart, it gets to work in the background -- finding deals and price drops, giving you insights on price history and alerting you when an item is back in stock. It all runs on our Gemini models, so your cart gets even smarter as the models improve." When you're ready to check out, you can do it there and then, as it's build on Google Wallet and contains all of your addresses, payment information and loyalty card information. Also inside the Gemini app, Google is introducing Spark, which is described as a massive shift for the nature of the app. Google says Spark transforms Gemini "from an assistant that can answer your questions into an active partner that does real work on your behalf and under your direction." Users can set recurring tasks and triggers, ask it to keep tabs on your inbox for deadlines or even take notes from your chats and turn them into Google Docs. Google previewed a forthcoming feature called Android Halo, which showcases what your personal AI agent is working on at the present time. It ties in with Gemini Spark and the recently announced Gemini Intelligence. "Android Halo makes your agent's status visible by bringing subtle communication to the top of your phone screen as it takes on a task, goes into live mode or sends you a message. This means you can see the agent's progress right from the top of any screen you're on, without having to stop what you're doing," Google says in the announcement. Google is debuting Gemini Omni, a series of models that allow images, audio, video and text inputs, to be output as editable video. Google says: "With Gemini Omni, video editing becomes a fluid, natural conversation. You can apply cinematic zooms or swap out backgrounds with a simple prompt. Just upload footage from your camera roll, apply built-in templates with a single tap and create polished content without expensive equipment or specialized technical jargon. You can even drop yourself directly into the action by creating a custom AI avatar that looks and sounds exactly like you. "Google TV is introducing support for pointer remotes, which may make it easier to navigate the operating system." The update will see a cursor appear on the display with users able to use the compatible remotes like a Nintendo Wiimote to open apps and select content. In a preview showcased at I/O, Google says viewers will be able to hover over items and see them highlighted and enlarged. "Pointer remotes bring motion-controlled input to the big screen, unlocking faster user navigation across the Google TV Home page and within content-heavy apps," the company says. Gemini is making its way into the Google Play store with a new 'Ask Play' chatbot that can help with recommending apps. Google says it'll offer "deeper search journeys" that'll help you get to just the app you're looking for, whether it's a new game or a tool to help you manage your to-do list.

Google I/O 2026: It's AI everywhere, from Gemini upgrades to smart glasses - The Economic Times

While the event offered little in the way of dramatic hardware reveals, it showed how deeply Gemini is being woven into Google's ecosystem.Google used its I/O 2026 keynote to make one thing clear: artificial intelligence is no longer a side project. The company is now placing AI agents at the centre of search, Gmail, YouTube, shopping, and even wearable devices. While the event offered little in the way of dramatic hardware reveals, it showed how deeply Gemini is being woven into Google's ecosystem. Gemini 3.5 arrives The headline software launch was Gemini 3.5 Flash, a faster and cheaper version of Google's latest AI model. It is now the default across the Gemini app and several Google services, while Gemini 3.5 Pro is expected next month. Google claims the model improves efficiency and performance, especially for everyday tasks and conversational prompts. Search gets more chatty Google is redesigning search around AI-powered interactions. Its new "intelligent search box" supports natural language questions and allows users to add images, videos, files, and browser tabs into searches. Search results will also become more dynamic. Instead of static links, users may see AI-generated layouts combining videos, articles, and images depending on the query. The company is also introducing search agents that can monitor things like ticket prices, apartment listings, or product drops in the background and alert users when something changes. Gemini Spark takes on daily tasks One of the biggest announcements was Gemini Spark, a cloud-based assistant designed to manage personal tasks continuously in the background. Spark can connect with Gmail, Docs, and third-party apps, including Uber and OpenTable. Google says it can help organise schedules, book services, and manage shopping lists while users are busy elsewhere. To avoid unwanted spending, purchases still require approval through Google's new Agent Payments Protocol. Voice AI across Gmail, Docs, YouTube Google is adding voice-powered AI tools to several products. Gmail Live allows users to ask questions about their inbox, while Docs Live can turn rough spoken ideas into structured documents with AI-generated edits and citations. YouTube is also getting "Ask YouTube", which surfaces relevant clips and jumps directly to moments that answer a user's question. Smarter shopping tools Shopping is becoming increasingly automated. Google introduced a universal shopping cart that gathers products from different retailers into one place. Gemini can track prices, suggest alternatives, and complete purchases using Google's payment system without requiring users to revisit every retailer separately. Gemini Omni and Flow focus on creativity Google also revealed Gemini Omni, a new multimodal AI tool capable of editing and generating videos from text, images, and audio inputs. Meanwhile, Flow -- Google's creative AI suite -- now offers tools for generating music videos, animated clips and polished audio tracks from simple prompts or uploaded images. Android XR smart glasses On the hardware side, Google previewed Android XR glasses developed with Samsung, Warby Parker, and Gentle Monster. The first models arriving later this year focus on audio and voice interaction, allowing Gemini to answer questions about the world through built-in cameras and speakers. Future versions will include displays for live translations, messages, and navigation overlays.

How Google's New Gemini Omni is Reshaping Multimodal AI

Google's latest updates to the Gemini AI ecosystem, as highlighted by AI Grid, emphasize advancements in multimodal functionality and task automation. A key feature of this release is Gemini Omni, which supports the creation and editing of videos, images and simulations using inputs like text and audio. Notable capabilities include conversational editing and advanced physics simulation, which cater to both creative and technical workflows. Additionally, Gemini Spark introduces a proactive AI assistant designed to integrate with platforms such as Gmail and Google Drive, facilitating task management across multiple devices. Explore how Gemini 3.5 Flash improves coding workflows through agentic automation, examine the cross-platform task coordination enabled by Gemini Spark and understand why Gemini Omni Pro is particularly suited for creative professionals. This analysis also provide more insights into the broader implications of these updates, offering a detailed view of how Google's AI ecosystem is adapting to meet diverse user needs in increasingly complex digital spaces. Gemini Omni is a new tool in the realm of multimodal AI, offering the ability to create and edit videos, images and simulations using a combination of text, images, video and audio inputs. Its conversational editing capabilities ensure intuitive interactions, while its advanced physics simulation delivers realistic outputs for even the most intricate projects. The initial release, Gemini Omni Flash, has already gained widespread attention for its versatility and the upcoming Omni Pro promises to expand these capabilities further, making it a powerful tool for creative professionals and technical users alike. Gemini 3.5 Flash is a high-performance large language model designed for speed and efficiency. It excels in agentic coding and real-world workflows, offering improved benchmarks for coding tasks and automation processes. Whether you're developing complex systems or streamlining repetitive tasks, this model provides the tools to complete projects faster and more cost-effectively. Its ability to integrate seamlessly into professional environments makes it an invaluable resource for developers and businesses seeking to optimize their operations. Learn more about Google Gemini with other articles and guides we have written below. Antigravity 2.0 is a platform tailored for agent-first workflows, providing tools such as CLI, SDK and voice support. It integrates effortlessly with platforms like Android and Firebase, allowing developers to build complex systems using autonomous sub-agents. This scalability and versatility have already been demonstrated by developers who have used Antigravity 2.0 to create operating systems, showcasing its potential to transform how systems are designed and managed. Gemini Spark is a proactive AI agent designed to assist with long-term task management. By integrating with tools like Gmail, Google Sheets and Google Drive, it ensures seamless coordination across devices. Its voice-based commands and cross-platform compatibility simplify workflows, making task management more intuitive and efficient. Whether you're organizing personal schedules or managing professional projects, Gemini Spark adapts to your needs, offering a personalized and streamlined experience. Voice-driven features are now a central component of Google's AI ecosystem. Tools like "Docs Live" allow you to create and edit documents hands-free, while similar capabilities extend to Gmail, Google Keep and the Gemini app. These voice-based interactions enhance productivity by allowing you to focus on tasks without the need for manual input, making it easier to multitask and manage workloads effectively. The Gemini app has been reimagined with a "neural expressive" interface, offering a visually appealing and intuitive user experience. Integrated multimedia tools for video and music editing make it a versatile platform for both personal and professional use. This redesign caters to a wide range of creative needs, making sure that users can access powerful tools in a user-friendly environment. Google Pics is a new tool designed for high-quality image creation and editing. Whether you're working on flyers, infographics, or other visual content, its precision editing features and built-in translation tools make it an essential resource. By combining advanced editing capabilities with user-friendly design, Google Pics enables users to produce professional-grade visuals with ease. Google Stitch is a UI/UX design tool that facilitates real-time collaboration for creating websites and applications. Its seamless export options allow designers and developers to transition from design to deployment effortlessly. By streamlining the development process, Google Stitch enhances collaboration and productivity, making it an indispensable tool for teams working on digital projects. Google Flow and Flow Music are advanced tools tailored for creative professionals, offering features for generating and editing images, videos and music. With capabilities like large-scale edits, custom tools and music remixing, these platforms provide the flexibility to bring creative visions to life. Whether you're working on personal projects or professional productions, Google Flow and Flow Music offer the tools to achieve your goals with precision and creativity. The Gemini Spark beta is currently available to Google AI Ultra subscribers for $100 per month. These updates are being rolled out globally across platforms, including Android, iOS and macOS, making sure accessibility for a diverse range of users. By offering these tools at a competitive price point, Google aims to make its advanced AI ecosystem available to a broader audience. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Gemini 3.5 Series AI Models, Gemini Omni Unveiled at Google I/O 2026

Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash is its best agentic and coding model Google I/O 2026 was hosted on Wednesday, giving everyone a first look at the new features and products the company will be rolling out to users and enterprises. Google CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off the keynote session and announced new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as Docs Live. However. It wasn't until DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis took the stage that the company revealed its most exciting innovation, Gemini Omni. Separately, the company also introduced the Gemini 3.5 series models for users. Gemini 3.5 Series, Gemini Omni Unveiled During the live event, the company unveiled the Gemini 3.5 series. Successor to the Gemini 3.1 series, the latest models bring significant upgrades in agentic capabilities and coding performance. Currently, Google is rolling out the Gemini 3.5 Flash model globally to everyone in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search. It is also available to developers via the Antigravity platform and in the Gemini application programming interface (API) via the AI Studio and Android Studio.

How are Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Omni changing AI unveiled at Google I/O 2026?

Google arrived at its annual I/O developer conference with a message that it does not plan to fall behind in the escalating artificial intelligence race. As OpenAI and Anthropic continue grabbing attention with massive valuations and rapid model development, Google unveiled a new wave of Gemini tools designed to make AI faster, cheaper and far more personal. At the center of the announcements were Gemini 3.5 Flash, a new lightweight AI model, and Gemini Spark, an AI agent built to actively assist users across apps and services. The company also introduced Gemini Omni, a video-focused model that can edit and transform footage through simple conversation prompts. The updates signal Google's biggest push yet to turn AI from a search tool into a constant digital assistant. Google used its I/O developer conference to showcase an aggressive expansion of its AI ecosystem as pressure grows from rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. Both companies are reportedly preparing for public offerings, while investors continue pouring billions into advanced AI development, as per several reports by Google, CNBC and Engadget. The centerpiece of Google's latest strategy is Gemini, its growing family of artificial intelligence models and tools. During the event, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, describing it as "remarkably fast." According to Google, the model delivers frontier-level AI performance at a significantly lower price than competing systems. The company said Gemini 3.5 Flash can operate at roughly half -- and in some cases one-third -- the cost of comparable AI models currently on the market. Google also confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Flash will now become the default model powering both the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search globally. "You no longer have to trade quality for latency," Google said in a blog post while discussing the updated system. The company added that the model has improved cybersecurity protections and is now "less likely to generate harmful content and mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries." Google is positioning Gemini 3.5 Flash as its strongest agentic and coding model so far. The company said the model performs especially well in long and complex workflows that previously required heavy human involvement. According to Google, 3.5 Flash can rapidly plan, build and iterate on tasks ranging from software development to financial document preparation. The company also claimed the model performs four times faster than other frontier AI systems when measuring output tokens per second, as per several reports by Google, CNBC and Engadget. Google said the balance between speed and performance makes Gemini 3.5 Flash especially useful for AI agents that need to complete multi-step assignments under supervision. The company noted that developers can already access the model through Google Antigravity, Gemini API in Google AI Studio, Android Studio and Gemini Enterprise services. Meanwhile, Google confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro, its heavier and more advanced version, is currently being used internally and will launch more broadly next month. ALSO READ: Nancy Guthrie case takes another twist: Why has the sheriff stopped speaking directly to Nancy Guthrie's family? here's what you need to know One of the most closely watched announcements from the event was Gemini Spark, Google's new personal AI agent. The company described Spark as a general-purpose AI assistant capable of reasoning across connected applications while helping users manage digital tasks. Google said the system is meant to "take action on your behalf while under your direction." Spark runs on Gemini 3.5 Flash and is designed to remain active continuously, helping users navigate their online lives with minimal input. The feature is initially launching in beta form for trusted testers and Google AI Ultra subscribers in the United States starting next week. As more users shift toward chatbot-based experiences instead of traditional web search, Google appears focused on turning Gemini into a deeper everyday assistant rather than just a search enhancement. ALSO READ: Fidelity Investments data breach settlement with up to $5,000 compensation for affected customers- here's who can file a claim Google also introduced Gemini Omni, a new AI model focused heavily on video generation and editing. The company described Omni as a "world model" capable of simulating physical environments and predicting realistic actions based on user prompts. Unlike earlier systems that mainly relied on text prompts, Gemini Omni can work using images, audio, video and text together. ALSO READ: China wouldn't let Marco Rubio in, so he did something nobody in US politics has ever done Google said users can upload a real video and simply ask Omni to change what happens inside it. "Take a video you shot and just ask Omni to change what's happening," Google explained. "Edit the action, add in new characters or objects." The company said Omni better understands concepts like gravity, fluid dynamics and motion physics, allowing scenes to appear more realistic. Google also claimed the tool can generate educational explainers and storytelling visuals using short prompts. Initially, Omni Flash is rolling out to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers globally, while YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create users will begin receiving access this week. Google said all AI-generated videos created with Omni will include its SynthID digital watermark system for identification purposes. The company acknowledged ongoing concerns surrounding AI-generated content and said some advanced editing functions involving speech and audio are still being tested "responsibly." While Google made ambitious promises about realism and creativity, the company also faces skepticism from users who often criticize AI video tools for producing "uncanny valley" results. Still, the latest announcements, Google is no longer treating AI as an experimental side project. With Gemini Spark, Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 Flash, the company is trying to reshape how people search, create, work and interact online every day. What is Gemini Spark? Gemini Spark is Google's new AI agent that can take actions across connected apps under user direction. What does Gemini Omni do? Gemini Omni can create and edit videos using text, audio, images and video inputs.

How Gemini 3.5 Flash Rivals Google's Pro Models at a Fraction of the Cost

Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI models, bypassing traditional preview phases to launch directly into general availability. This shift highlights Google's confidence in the model's readiness for real-world applications, offering businesses and developers a production-ready solution that balances performance with cost-effectiveness. According to Prompt Engineering, one standout feature is its enhanced token generation, which enables the creation of detailed, structured outputs essential for tasks requiring precision. This capability positions the Gemini 3.5 Flash as a practical option for industries prioritizing scalability and efficiency. Explore how the Gemini 3.5 Flash excels in areas such as multi-agent workflows, agentic coding and adaptive reasoning. Gain insight into its advanced features like function calling and code execution, which streamline development processes and enable dynamic integrations. Additionally, understand its strengths in balancing affordability with high-caliber output, as well as the challenges it faces in unconventional reasoning scenarios. This analysis provides a comprehensive look at how the Gemini 3.5 Flash fits into Google's AI lineup and its potential to meet diverse production needs. The decision to release Gemini 3.5 Flash directly into GA marks a notable shift in Google's deployment strategy. Historically, AI models underwent extensive preview phases to refine their capabilities before being deemed production-ready. By skipping this step, Google signals its assurance in the model's stability and performance. This approach benefits organizations that prioritize rapid deployment, scalability and cost-effectiveness without compromising on quality. For businesses, this means faster integration into workflows and reduced time-to-value, making the Gemini 3.5 Flash an attractive option for diverse industries. One of the standout features of the Gemini 3.5 Flash is its ability to generate a significantly higher volume of tokens compared to earlier Flash models. This enhanced token generation capability allows the model to produce more detailed, structured and contextually rich outputs, which are essential for tasks requiring precision and depth. Its performance is comparable to the Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, particularly in reasoning and output quality, making it a strong contender for users seeking high-caliber results at a reduced cost. This balance between performance and affordability positions the Gemini 3.5 Flash as a practical choice for production environments. Take a look at other insightful guides from our broad collection that might capture your interest in Google Gemini 3. The Gemini 3.5 Flash excels in handling complex reasoning tasks and multi-agent workflows. Its advanced capabilities make it particularly effective in agentic coding, where multiple AI agents collaborate to achieve shared objectives. This feature is invaluable for projects that require logical problem-solving, coordination and adaptability. For example, in scenarios involving intricate simulations or collaborative coding tasks, the model demonstrates remarkable efficiency. However, it occasionally encounters challenges with "misguided attention" in certain modified logical scenarios, highlighting an area where further refinement could enhance its reliability. The adaptability of the Gemini 3.5 Flash is evident in its wide range of applications. From simulations and 3D visualizations to web development, the model proves its capability to meet diverse requirements. Its ability to create immersive environments, generate functional web applications and tackle multi-faceted tasks underscores its utility across industries. The advanced reasoning capabilities further enhance its appeal, allowing users to address complex challenges with confidence. Whether used in creative, technical, or analytical domains, the Gemini 3.5 Flash demonstrates its potential as a versatile AI tool. Several advanced features distinguish the Gemini 3.5 Flash from its predecessors, making it a powerful tool for developers and businesses: These features empower users to create sophisticated AI-driven solutions, catering to both technical and semi-technical audiences. By combining these capabilities, the Gemini 3.5 Flash sets a new standard for functionality and user experience. Within Google's Gemini lineup, the 3.5 Flash strikes a balance between performance and cost. It generates more detailed and structured outputs than the Gemini 3 Flash Preview, although it exhibits slightly slower response times. Its training recipes and output quality are on par with the Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, making it a cost-effective yet capable option for production environments. This balance ensures that users can achieve high-quality results without exceeding budget constraints, further solidifying its position as a practical choice for businesses and developers. While the Gemini 3.5 Flash offers robust reasoning capabilities and advanced features, it is not without its limitations. The model occasionally struggles with specific logical problems, particularly in scenarios involving modified or unconventional reasoning tasks. Addressing these challenges will be critical to enhancing its reliability and expanding its applicability in high-stakes environments. Despite these areas for improvement, the model's affordability, versatility and overall performance make it a strong contender for organizations looking to integrate AI into their workflows. As of now, Google has not disclosed detailed pricing information or benchmarks for the Gemini 3.5 Flash. However, it is expected to be positioned as a cost-effective alternative to the Pro versions, broadening its accessibility to a wider range of users. The direct-to-GA release reflects Google's commitment to delivering practical, scalable AI solutions that cater to diverse needs. This approach ensures that businesses of all sizes can use the model's capabilities without facing prohibitive costs. The Gemini 3.5 Flash represents a significant step forward in Google's AI offerings. By combining cost-efficiency with advanced capabilities, it addresses the needs of production environments while maintaining high performance standards. Its versatility across applications, coupled with its advanced features, positions it as a valuable tool for developers, businesses and AI enthusiasts alike. While there is room for improvement, the Gemini 3.5 Flash offers a glimpse into the future of AI-driven solutions, paving the way for innovation across industries. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Google I/O Announcements: Gemini Updates, Google Spark and Gemini Omni Video Model

The sudden spurt of activity from Google now puts the onus back on the likes of ChatGPT and Claude to match-up Over the past few weeks, every discussion around AI supremacy centred around the OpenAI-Anthropic battle with little or no mention of Google in the contest. Now Google is back and how. The company revamped search and is also upgrading the Gemini App with new updates that includes a Daily Brief feature. In addition, there is a redesigned interface and access to a new video model called Gemini Omni as well as a new personal AI agent called Gemini Spark. These changes are an obvious signal that Google wants to place Gemini as an all-purpose AI hub and not just a chatbot that competes with the likes of ChatGPT and Claude. The Daily Brief is described as a personalised digest that users can peer into each morning as it collects information from one's inbox, calendar, and tasks lists into a simple overview. Google says the information isn't just summarised, it is also listed out as priorities with some suggestions for next course of action. For now, it is rolling out to subscribers in the US. Already, the Gemini app has reached more than 900 million monthly users across 230 companies where it is served up in more than 70 languages. However, from Google's point of view, this is hardly enough. The company says it has rebuilt the app from ground-up so that when users open it now, they'd see a new design that it calls "Neural Expressive" containing fluid animations, more colours, new type faces, and haptic feedback. Gone is the wall of text that Gemini's responses featured on and is common to other chatbots too. Now all key information would appear in bold at the top with additional text and other elements like images and timelines appearing on downward scrolls. As for Gemini Spark, Google says this would be a user's 24/7 personal AI assistant that helps navigating one's digital life. This cloud-based agent keeps working in the background even when the smartphone is locked. Currently under testing, the company expects it to become available to Google Ultra subscribers next week when they can create custom workflows. Gemini Spark that was built from Gemini base models and an agentic harness from Google Antigravity. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai called is as the "next evolution of smart digital assistants" that use agentic AI to take on long-horizon tasks with minimal oversight. "It's your personal AI agent that helps you navigate your digital life, taking action on your behalf and under your direction," Pichai said at a pre-briefing of the product adding that it runs on dedicated virtual machines on Google Cloud. Users can email Spark directly through a dedicated Gmail address, following which the agent could interact with the web directly via Chrome. The same can be achieved via mobile too as users will be able to track the agent's progress via the new Android Halo system. Finally, the Gemini Omni AI video model seeks to combine Gemini with Google's generative media models in order to generate outputs from knowledgeable sources. The model allows users to upload audio, images, and videos to generate consistent, high-quality videos, the company says in a blog. "Omni is our new model that can create anything from any input -- starting with video. With Omni, you can combine images, audio, video and text as input and generate high-quality videos grounded in Gemini's real-world knowledge. You can also easily edit your videos through conversation," says a blog post. Gemini Omni gives you an easier way to edit video -- with natural language. Every instruction builds on the last. Your characters stay consistent, the physics hold up and the scene remembers what came before, it says. This is yet another step that Google is taking that suggests competition with other AI platforms is intensifying in the ongoing race for AI supremacy. The model will also be available for Google Flow and YouTube Shorts for all Google AI subscribers.

Google announces slew of AI advances, including personal AI assistant coming soon - The Korea Times

Attendees walk past a google sign at Google I/O, in Mountain View, California, May 19. AFP-Yonhap Google will soon unleash a wealth of new artificial intelligence-powered tools and systems, including an AI assistant that will help users by proactively performing tasks on their behalf. "Agentic" AI, the recent buzzword of choice for tech firms, was a central focus of Google's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The upcoming AI agent, Gemini Spark, was one of many of the company's announcements from the conference Tuesday. "We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company's Mountain View, California, headquarters. "I've played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it's still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful." Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have poured billions into AI development. Its top finance executive said on a call with investors in late April that this year's capital expenditures may climb as high as $190 billion. But the investment seems to be paying off, with its quarterly earnings showing strong growth. The stock has climbed another 11% since the report last month. Pichai said during the keynote address that the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users last year, but that usership has now surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. Latest version of Gemini is here Google's latest family of models, Gemini 3.5, is rolling out Tuesday to billions of global users beginning with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash model is focused on speed, and Google says 3.5 Flash is its strongest agentic and coding model yet, but it's also about four times faster than some competitors. This model is now the default for the Gemini app and "AI mode" on Google search. The company is also working on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which it says it's using internally and expects to launch next month. Gemini 3.5 was developed with new, more advanced safety training and mitigations, meaning its models are less likely to generate harmful content or to mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries, the company said. Google also announced a new model, Gemini Omni, which will enable users to create high-quality video by making a query with any input, be it text, images, videos and audio. The video Omni creates can then be edited easily though a conversation with the model. Users will eventually be able to create images and audio with Omni, but there were no details about when those features will be rolled out. The company said Omni's videos will appear more realistic than videos created by other models because of its understanding of forces like gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics. Gemini Omni Flash, the first of the Omni family, is launching Tuesday for Google Al Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Flow. Beginning this week, it will be available at no cost on YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App. All videos created with Omni will include Google's imperceptible digital watermark, SynthID, but Google is also adding content credentials verification to the Gemini app. This tool determines if content like photo or video was created by AI or captured with a phone camera and edited with AI tools. It will be available in search in Chrome in the coming months. Google also announced AI companies Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are adopting its SynthID technology to more of their AI-generated content. 24/7 agent, wearable AI Powered by Gemini 3.5, Gemini Spark will be able to complete mundane, routine tasks like sorting through meeting notes, emails and chats and then creating a document with the biggest takeaways and to-dos. Unlike other available agents, Spark is based in the cloud, so it continues working in the background even when users shut their laptops or lock their phones. The proactive nature of AI agents is what differentiates them from chatbots, and that has also led to some anxieties about the technology's power. Gemini Spark is designed to ask for permission before performing "high-stakes" tasks like sending an email or making a purchase, the company said. Select testers will have access to the agent beginning Tuesday, and the company plans to roll out the beta mode to U.S.-based subscribers to its Google AI Ultra tier. Later this summer, Gemini Spark will operate directly within Chrome, the company said. Among the many AI-centric announcements at the conference was an update on the long-awaited smart glasses from Google, of which there will be two kinds: audio glasses that offer spoken help in your ear, and display glasses that provide information visually. The audio glasses will come first, with the company expecting them to arrive later this fall. Users will be able to say "Hey Google" or tap the side of the frame to access Gemini, which will then assist with navigation, managing communication on their phone, real-time translations and other tasks. Google partnered with Samsung and eyewear brands Gentle Monster and Warby Parker to create the glasses and gave the first look at two designs on Tuesday, with sunglasses from Gentle Monster and glasses from Warby Parker. Those designs will launch as part of the eyewear brands' full collections later this year, Google said. More AI in search, shopping At last year's conference, the most talked-about development was the introduction and rollout of "AI mode" on Google's search engine. The feature gives users a more conversational answer to their query before providing relevant links, building on previously implemented changed how users experience and interact with the platform. AI mode queries have more than doubled every quarter since its launch last year, and the tool recently surpassed 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google's head of search. The new default model in search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash and the company is introducing what it calls an intelligent search box. This change, which Reid says is the biggest upgrade to the search box in 25 years, means the box will adapt to accommodate longer queries and it can help users write out their questions with AI-powered suggestions instead of traditional autocomplete. Users can also search using multiple modalities, using text, images, video, files and even Chrome tabs as search inputs. The new search box is starting its roll out Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently available. The company also announced a new tool, the Universal Cart, which it called "a truly intelligent shopping cart." It works across merchants and across services so users can add things to their cart while browsing Google search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart then runs on Gemini models to go to work as soon as an item is placed in the cart, looking for deals and price drops, providing price history information and alerting users when something comes back in stock. The Universal Cart tool will be available to users on search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow.

Google I/O 2026: Gemini Agents, AI Search, and What's New

Google used its I/O 2026 developer conference to signal a major shift from AI chatbots to so-called "agentic" AI systems, tools that can act on a user's behalf across apps, devices, and the web. The company announced new Gemini models, AI-powered search upgrades, autonomous agents, shopping tools, developer platforms, and AI hardware, while also integrating its infrastructure and subscription ecosystem more deeply into everyday consumer and enterprise workflows. Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 take centre stage: Google announced Gemini Omni, a new multimodal AI model that it says can eventually generate "any output from any input." The first version, Gemini Omni Flash, can create and edit videos using text, images, audio, and video references. Google said the model combines Gemini's reasoning with its media-generation systems to improve its understanding of physics and motion, resulting in more realistic outputs. The tool is being rolled out through the Gemini app, Google Flow, and YouTube Shorts. Google also launched Gemini 3.5 Flash, the first model in what the company described as a new family focused on "frontier intelligence with action." The company said the model is designed for coding, AI agents, and long-running tasks. AI Search becomes more conversational and proactive: Search was another major focus of the event. Google said AI Mode has crossed 1 billion monthly users, while AI Overviews now reach 2.5 billion users every month. The company announced a redesigned AI-first Search interface that can handle text, images, videos, files and browser tabs. Google is also introducing 'information agents,' AI systems that continuously monitor topics, news, shopping trends, and finance updates in the background and send users summarized recommendations. Google is also turning Search into a more interactive product. Powered by its Antigravity platform and Gemini 3.5 Flash, Search will now generate custom interfaces, visualisations, dashboards and mini-apps depending on the query. Some of these features will initially be limited to paid subscribers. Gemini Spark and the push toward autonomous AI assistants: Another major announcement was Gemini Spark, a 24/7 AI agent that runs continuously in the background and can complete long-running tasks across devices and apps. Google said Spark works even when a laptop or phone is turned off because it runs on cloud-based virtual machines. The company plans to integrate it with third-party tools through the MCP protocol. The Gemini app is becoming more proactive. Google introduced "Daily Brief," which pulls information from Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Tasks to create a personalised morning summary. The company also redesigned the Gemini interface with a new system called "Neural Expressive," which features interactive layouts, animations and voice-first controls. New tools for creators and developers: For creators, Google announced Google Pics, an AI-powered image editing and design tool built on its Nano Banana image model. The company also upgraded Google Flow, its AI creative platform, with AI agents that can brainstorm, edit assets, organise projects, and create custom creative tools using natural language prompts. Google's developer announcements focused on Antigravity, its new agent-focused development platform. The company launched Antigravity 2.0, a desktop app that lets users manage multiple AI agents simultaneously. It also introduced Antigravity CLI, SDK support, Managed Agents in the Gemini API, and new Android app-building tools in Google AI Studio. Google said developers can now create Android apps directly from prompts and publish them to Google Play test tracks from within AI Studio. The company also pushed deeper into AI subscriptions. Google launched a new $100-per-month AI Ultra plan aimed at developers and advanced users. The plan includes higher usage limits, expanded storage, and premium AI features. AI glasses and scientific research tools: Hardware and XR also featured prominently. Google said its first AI-powered audio glasses, developed in partnership with Warby Parker, Samsung and Gentle Monster, will launch later this year. The glasses will support voice assistance, messaging, navigation, and real-time information overlays. Google also announced new scientific AI tools under "Gemini for Science," including systems for hypothesis generation, literature analysis and code-based scientific simulations. The company said the tools are designed to accelerate scientific research workflows Sundar Pichai pitches the "agentic Gemini era": Alongside product launches, Google repeatedly highlighted the scale of its AI operations. CEO Sundar Pichai said Google now processes "over 3.2 quadrillion" tokens per month across its products, up from 480 trillion a year ago. He said more than 8.5 million developers build with Gemini every month, and Google's APIs process "roughly 19 billion tokens per minute." Pichai framed the event as a transition toward AI systems that actively perform tasks rather than simply answer questions. "We're firmly in our agentic Gemini era," he said. At the same time, the event reflected Google's attempt to defend and expand its position against growing competition from companies such as OpenAI and others racing to build AI agents, search products, and multimodal systems. Several announcements, including autonomous agents, AI-powered commerce, coding tools, and multimodal video generation, targeted areas where rivals have recently gained traction. Google pushes transparency tools amid deepfake concerns: Google also tried to address concerns around AI-generated content and deepfakes. The company expanded its SynthID watermarking system and announced that OpenAI, Kakao and ElevenLabs will adopt the technology for some AI-generated content. Google said Search and Chrome will soon support verification tools that determine whether media was AI-generated or edited. Throughout the event, Google positioned AI not as a separate product, but as infrastructure that will increasingly be integrated into Search, Android, Workspace, Chrome, YouTube and shopping. But many of the headline features, including agents, advanced search tools and creative systems, remain limited to testers, U.S. users or paid subscribers, with broader rollouts planned over the coming months.

Inside Google I/O 2026: How are Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Omni changing AI?

Google unveiled a suite of new Gemini AI tools at its I/O conference, including Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini Spark, and Gemini Omni. These advancements aim to make AI faster, cheaper, and more personal, positioning Google to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic by transforming AI into a constant digital assistant. Google arrived at its annual I/O developer conference with a message that it does not plan to fall behind in the escalating artificial intelligence race. As OpenAI and Anthropic continue grabbing attention with massive valuations and rapid model development, Google unveiled a new wave of Gemini tools designed to make AI faster, cheaper and far more personal. At the center of the announcements were Gemini 3.5 Flash, a new lightweight AI model, and Gemini Spark, an AI agent built to actively assist users across apps and services. The company also introduced Gemini Omni, a video-focused model that can edit and transform footage through simple conversation prompts. The updates signal Google's biggest push yet to turn AI from a search tool into a constant digital assistant. Google used its I/O developer conference to showcase an aggressive expansion of its AI ecosystem as pressure grows from rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. Both companies are reportedly preparing for public offerings, while investors continue pouring billions into advanced AI development, as per several reports by Google, CNBC and Engadget. The centerpiece of Google's latest strategy is Gemini, its growing family of artificial intelligence models and tools. During the event, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, describing it as "remarkably fast." According to Google, the model delivers frontier-level AI performance at a significantly lower price than competing systems. The company said Gemini 3.5 Flash can operate at roughly half -- and in some cases one-third -- the cost of comparable AI models currently on the market. Google also confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Flash will now become the default model powering both the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search globally. "You no longer have to trade quality for latency," Google said in a blog post while discussing the updated system. The company added that the model has improved cybersecurity protections and is now "less likely to generate harmful content and mistakenly refuse to answer safe queries." Google is positioning Gemini 3.5 Flash as its strongest agentic and coding model so far. The company said the model performs especially well in long and complex workflows that previously required heavy human involvement. According to Google, 3.5 Flash can rapidly plan, build and iterate on tasks ranging from software development to financial document preparation. The company also claimed the model performs four times faster than other frontier AI systems when measuring output tokens per second, as per several reports by Google, CNBC and Engadget. Google said the balance between speed and performance makes Gemini 3.5 Flash especially useful for AI agents that need to complete multi-step assignments under supervision. The company noted that developers can already access the model through Google Antigravity, Gemini API in Google AI Studio, Android Studio and Gemini Enterprise services. Meanwhile, Google confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro, its heavier and more advanced version, is currently being used internally and will launch more broadly next month. ALSO READ: Nancy Guthrie case takes another twist: Why has the sheriff stopped speaking directly to Nancy Guthrie's family? here's what you need to know One of the most closely watched announcements from the event was Gemini Spark, Google's new personal AI agent. The company described Spark as a general-purpose AI assistant capable of reasoning across connected applications while helping users manage digital tasks. Google said the system is meant to "take action on your behalf while under your direction." Spark runs on Gemini 3.5 Flash and is designed to remain active continuously, helping users navigate their online lives with minimal input. The feature is initially launching in beta form for trusted testers and Google AI Ultra subscribers in the United States starting next week. As more users shift toward chatbot-based experiences instead of traditional web search, Google appears focused on turning Gemini into a deeper everyday assistant rather than just a search enhancement. ALSO READ: Fidelity Investments data breach settlement with up to $5,000 compensation for affected customers- here's who can file a claim Google also introduced Gemini Omni, a new AI model focused heavily on video generation and editing. The company described Omni as a "world model" capable of simulating physical environments and predicting realistic actions based on user prompts. Unlike earlier systems that mainly relied on text prompts, Gemini Omni can work using images, audio, video and text together. ALSO READ: China wouldn't let Marco Rubio in, so he did something nobody in US politics has ever done Google said users can upload a real video and simply ask Omni to change what happens inside it. "Take a video you shot and just ask Omni to change what's happening," Google explained. "Edit the action, add in new characters or objects." The company said Omni better understands concepts like gravity, fluid dynamics and motion physics, allowing scenes to appear more realistic. Google also claimed the tool can generate educational explainers and storytelling visuals using short prompts. Initially, Omni Flash is rolling out to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers globally, while YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create users will begin receiving access this week. Google said all AI-generated videos created with Omni will include its SynthID digital watermark system for identification purposes. The company acknowledged ongoing concerns surrounding AI-generated content and said some advanced editing functions involving speech and audio are still being tested "responsibly." While Google made ambitious promises about realism and creativity, the company also faces skepticism from users who often criticize AI video tools for producing "uncanny valley" results. Still, the latest announcements, Google is no longer treating AI as an experimental side project. With Gemini Spark, Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 Flash, the company is trying to reshape how people search, create, work and interact online every day. What is Gemini Spark? Gemini Spark is Google's new AI agent that can take actions across connected apps under user direction. What does Gemini Omni do? Gemini Omni can create and edit videos using text, audio, images and video inputs.

Why Google's Gemini 3.5 Flash Might Not Be Enough to Beat OpenAI

Google's latest AI advancements, including the Gemini 3.5 Flash model and Antigravity 2.0, highlight a push toward faster processing, cost-efficiency and tighter integration within its ecosystem. For example, the Gemini 3.5 Flash model claims to deliver double the efficiency at half the cost, positioning itself as a practical choice for businesses aiming to optimize performance without overspending. However, as Universe of AI points out, many of these updates closely mirror features already available from competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic, raising concerns about whether Google is innovating or simply keeping pace in an increasingly crowded market. Explore how these updates stack up against industry benchmarks, with a focus on the real-world applications of the Gemini 3.5 Flash model, the workflow enhancements of Antigravity 2.0 and the versatility of Gemini Omni for content creation. You'll also gain insight into the challenges Google faces in differentiating its offerings and the critical role the upcoming Gemini 3.5 Pro release could play in shaping its future in the AI landscape. This analysis provides a balanced look at Google's current position and the hurdles it must overcome to establish itself as a true leader in AI innovation. The Gemini 3.5 Flash model represents a significant upgrade over its predecessor, Gemini 3.1 Pro. It is designed to deliver faster processing speeds, a smaller operational footprint, and lower costs, making it a compelling option for businesses and developers seeking efficiency without compromising performance. According to Google, the model outperforms its competitors in both benchmarks and real-world applications, offering double the efficiency at half the cost. Key features of the Gemini 3.5 Flash model include: Internally, Google engineers have widely adopted the model, showcasing its potential for broader applications across industries. However, its similarities to existing solutions from other AI leaders may limit its ability to stand out in a competitive market. While the model's efficiency is impressive, its success will depend on whether it can offer unique value beyond incremental improvements. Antigravity 2.0 has evolved from an AI-powered integrated development environment (IDE) into a standalone desktop application, offering developers a more robust and versatile toolset. This transition introduces features such as dynamic sub-agents, asynchronous task handling, and a project-based workflow, making it particularly appealing for managing complex development projects. Key enhancements include: These improvements position Antigravity 2.0 as a valuable resource for developers, particularly those already invested in Google's ecosystem. However, it faces intense competition from similar tools offered by OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have established strong footholds in the AI development market. To gain a competitive edge, Antigravity 2.0 will need to demonstrate clear advantages in usability, scalability and integration. Enhance your knowledge on Gemini 3 by exploring a selection of articles and guides on the subject. Gemini Spark represents Google's foray into cloud-based AI agents, designed to enhance productivity and simplify workflows. Operating on Google Cloud, this personal AI assistant integrates seamlessly with both Google Workspace and third-party platforms, offering professionals a streamlined approach to managing tasks and projects. Key features of Gemini Spark include: Currently in limited beta testing, Gemini Spark has shown promise in early trials. However, its long-term success will depend on user adoption and its ability to outperform established alternatives in the market. While its integration with Google's ecosystem is a strength, it must also demonstrate versatility and innovation to attract users from competing platforms. Gemini Omni is a multi-modal AI system designed for content creation, offering the ability to generate videos, images, and audio from text inputs. It supports conversational editing, allowing users to refine their content through intuitive, dialogue-based interactions. Additionally, Gemini Omni incorporates real-world knowledge to enhance the relevance and accuracy of its outputs. Notable capabilities include: While these features are impressive, they are not entirely unique. Competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic have already introduced similar multi-modal systems, leaving Google with the challenge of demonstrating how Gemini Omni offers distinct advantages. Its success will likely depend on its ability to integrate seamlessly with Google's ecosystem while providing innovative features that set it apart from rival offerings. A closer examination of Google's recent AI updates reveals a recurring theme: many of the features introduced closely mirror those of competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. While Google's emphasis on speed, cost-efficiency, and ecosystem integration is commendable, these updates do not necessarily position the company as an industry leader. Instead, they suggest that Google is working to match its rivals rather than setting new standards for innovation. This approach raises important questions about Google's long-term strategy in the AI space. Can the company use its vast resources and ecosystem to deliver truly new solutions, or will it continue to play catch-up in a highly competitive market? The upcoming release of Gemini 3.5 Pro represents a pivotal moment for Google. Positioned as the next step in its AI evolution, this model promises enhanced performance, greater innovation, and the potential to redefine Google's standing in the AI landscape. If it delivers on these promises, Gemini 3.5 Pro could help Google reclaim its status as a leader in the field. For now, Google's latest updates establish it as a strong competitor but fall short of making it a frontrunner. As the AI industry continues to evolve, Google's ability to innovate, differentiate, and anticipate market needs will ultimately determine its long-term success. The release of Gemini 3.5 Pro will be a critical test of whether Google can rise to the challenge and lead the next wave of AI advancements. Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.

Google I/O 2026: Gemini Omni, Spark & Android XR Launch Expected in Biggest AI Push Yet

Google I/O 2026 is expected to feature Gemini Omni, Aluminium OS, AI agents, Android XR devices, and ecosystem-wide upgrades. While Google has continued to stay mum on the new AI features it could introduce at I/O 2026, various leaks have given us an idea of what to expect from one of the tech giant's biggest events of the year. Google I/O is all set to kick off, where the company will showcase some of its biggest AI upgrades of the year. Just like last year, Google held the Android Show separately, where it showcased the latest features coming to Android 17, including Gemini Intelligence, Google Chrome's AI integration, the Rambler AI tool inside Gboard, and . Google last launched its Gemini 3.1 Pro model back in February 2026. Since then, competitors have released GPT-5.5 to Claude Opus 4.7 and Anthropic's upcoming Mythos model. It's not entirely clear what the new AI model could be called, but a new model launch is more or less par for the course at this point. Google had also launched Gemini 2.5 Pro at I/O last year. According to reports, the tech giant is looking to add more advanced agentic AI capabilities to the . The new capabilities could be branded as 'Gemini Spark' and allow the chatbot to complete tasks on behalf of users. It is expected to automate tasks like decluttering inboxes by summarizing or archiving newsletters, preparing meeting briefs, and creating personalised news digests that track stories over time. The new model was spotted after a user on Reddit posted a screenshot showing Gemini Omni appearing inside the app. The description for the new model read: "Meet our new video generation model. Remix your videos, edit directly in chat, try a template, and more." According to Forbes, Google is internally testing several new AI models for Gemini Live, which it says were discovered via a hidden selector inside the Google app. The report noted that there are measurable differences between these models, with some able to access live weather and location data while others offer stronger memory and context awareness. Google already unveiled its Googlebooks at the Android Show, and now it may be time for the company to reveal the operating system running them. Aluminium OS has reportedly been in the works for a while and is expected to be a desktop-focused operating system that essentially brings Android to bigger screens. Ahead of the Android Show, a 16-minute leaked video reportedly showed off Aluminium OS. Android 17 is likely to get a detailed showcase during the event. Google may reveal performance improvements, better multitasking features, and new AI-powered tools integrated directly into Android devices.

Google kicks off I/O conference with AI upgrades for coders, consumers - The Economic Times

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced major AI advancements at the company's developer conference. New tools like Docs Live and Ask YouTube were revealed. Gemini AI now boasts 900 million users. The company also launched Gemini Omni, a new video generation model. These updates aim to strengthen Google's position in the AI race.Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off Google's annual developer conference on Tuesday where the tech giant revealed a flurry of artificial intelligence upgrades for consumers and coders. This year's I/O conference in Mountain View, California - traditionally Google's flagship event for showcasing the cutting edge of its consumer-facing products - is the company's first since last winter's major update to its Gemini AI model helped it regain ground in the AI race. "I think it's been an incredible year, all of the relentless shifting, the rapid advances in technology. It's been a period of hyper progress," Pichai said. The Alphabet chief began the keynote presentation by revealing new products including ⁠Docs Live, ⁠which can help a user draft a document through a real-time voice conversation, and Ask YouTube, a conversational search interface. Pichai also said that Google's Gemini AI chatbot now has 900 million monthly users - more than doubling in a year. Its AI Overviews feature in Search now has 2.5 billion monthly users, while AI Mode has about 1 billion, he added. "When people use our AI-powered features in search, they use search more," Pichai said. Google parent Alphabet recently came within striking distance of Nvidia as the world's most valuable company. It is looking to fortify its standing on Tuesday with a refreshed version of Gemini, plus new products and features built with the model's capabilities. Google launches Gemini Omni video tool The company also unveiled ⁠Gemini Omni, a new video model that Google executives sought to cast as a successor to the Nano Banana image generator, which attracted 13 million first-time users in just four days in September in what has marked one of Google's few viral AI moments. ⁠Omni can generate videos with customizable audio and text. Demis Hassabis, who runs Google's DeepMind AI lab, said Gemini Omni represented the next step in Google's vision to create a "world model," which can simulate the physical nature of the world. "Starting with video, but over time, Omni will be able to generate any output from any input," Hassabis said. Google has pushed to turn its vast consumer reach into an edge in AI, connecting Gemini to personalized user data across its suite of products that includes Chrome, Gmail, and YouTube. The company is embedding generative AI into its traditional search engine and seeking to amass users on its chatbot that is also called Gemini and competes with ChatGPT. Search was Alphabet's biggest revenue driver in 2025, when it reported $402.8 billion in total revenue. The company is ramping up spending on AI infrastructure, expecting $180 billion to $190 billion in capital expenditures this year. Ad revenue growth eases investor concerns Advertising revenue, including from search ads, has continued to burnish Google's growth in recent quarters, assuaging investor fears that AI could disrupt Google's products and soften its market ⁠dominance. AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have been gearing up for IPOs, focused on capturing lucrative enterprise customers. Google is also expected to dedicate time at the conference to focus on businesses, particularly software developers who have been a primary source of enterprise AI revenue. In 2025, the company hired key staff from popular AI code generation startup Windsurf in a $2.4 billion deal to bolster its efforts around coding assistant Antigravity, which competes with Anthropic's market-leading Claude Code software development tool. Google is increasingly positioning digital assistants it calls agents, which can do complicated tasks autonomously, as the linchpin of its strategy to monetize AI. Pichai and other executives spoke about this at a business-oriented cloud computing conference last month. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said at the time the company was saving the bulk of its coding-related announcements for the I/O conference.

Google IO 2026: Sundar Pichai gave numbers to explain rapid AI adoption

At Google IO 2026's opening keynote, Sundar Pichai's calm and cool demenaour was in direct contrast to all the gargantuan numbers he was dropping to underscore just how fast the whole world was adopting AI. One after another, the Google CEO belted out a sequence of stats that paints a vivid picture of AI adoption moving at a velocity that's hard to grasp in any single frame. How AI is being used by average users, developers, and all the cool products being made. Pichai also spoke about how AI is eating into Google's infrastructure capex, and how the company's pouring tens of billions into keeping the AI party going. Here are some broad strokes of some of the most humbling stats and figures Pichai spoke about during his Google IO 2026 keynote. The cleanest illustration of the scale of AI being used came from Pichai's point on token volume - the fundamental unit of data that AI models process. "Two years, we were processing 9.7 trillion tokens a month across the surface, that's a huge number," Pichai said. "Last year at IO, that grew to about 480 trillion tokens. And fast forward to today, that number has jumped seven times to 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month." Also read: Google I/O 2026: What is Gemini Spark, the AI assistant that works even when your laptop is off He acknowledged the absurdity of this moment, absolute bonkers in terms of the unit itself. "Never imagined I'd say quadrillion in an IO keynote, but here we are," Pichai said with his charismatic smile. That growth isn't only consumer-facing. On the developer side, the numbers are similarly outsized. "Over 8.5 million of you are now building new apps and experiences with our models monthly. And our model APIs are now processing around 19 billion tokens per minute," Pichai said. "Over the past 12 months, over 375 customers each processed more than 1 trillion tokens, representing incredible demand for AI across the industry." "We now have 13 products with over a billion users each. Five of those have more than 3 billion users," Pichai noted, framing Gemini as the main reason this adoption curve hasn't flattened. Google Search, the company's foundational product, has seen its impact as well. "AI Overviews now has over 2.5 billion monthly users. And AI mode has been a revelation, our biggest upgrade to search ever. People love it," he said. "In just a year, it's already surpassed 1 billion monthly users. When people use our AI-powered features in search, they use search more." Also read: Google I/O 2026: Gemini 3.5 Flash, AI video tool and major Gemini app upgrades announced The Gemini app itself has more than doubled in a year. "Last year at IO, the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users. Today, we have surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. In that same time, daily requests have grown over seven times." One feature category - image generation, specifically - will make you sit up straight in your seat, if it doesn't make your jaw drop. "More than 50 billion images have been generated with our Nano Banana models," Pichai said. "It was a breakout star this past year." Numbers like these are impossible without capital to allow for such crazy growth, and Pichai underlined the figure in his opening keynote. "In 2022, we were spending $31 billion annually in capex. This year, we expect that number to be about six times that at approximately $180-$190 billion." A majority of that spend is going into custom silicon, according to Pichai. The proprietary distributed training and inference Google has built around its eighth-generation TPUs - TPU-80 for training and TPU-80i for inference. Pichai said, "we can now seamlessly distribute training across multiple sites, scaling across more than one million TPUs globally. This gives us the ability to create the largest training cluster in the world. For model builders, this means training larger, more capable models in weeks rather than months." Perhaps the most telling indicator of speed in Pichai's speech was how fast Google itself is consuming the models it builds. Working with its agent-first development platform Antigravity and the newly announced Gemini 3.5 Flash, Pichai said, "in March, we were processing half a trillion tokens a day internally for our developers. We've been doubling every few weeks, and now we are processing more than 3 trillion tokens a day." A single demo demonstrated the ROI curve. Inside Antigravity, a team of 93 sub-agents running on Gemini 3.5 Flash built a working operating system from scratch in about 12 hours - making over 15,000 model requests and processing 2.6 billion tokens, with a total compute cost of under $1,000 in API credits. "Multi-day engineering efforts are collapsing into hours, if not minutes," Antigravity lead Varun said on stage. For anyone tracking numbers around AI adoption, the Google IO 2026 keynote offered a useful set of reference points. The curve is steep, the AI spend is unprecedented, and the numbers Google is now flexing openly shows just how much of AI is being used all over by all kinds of users.

Google I/O 2026: 5 ways Gemini is getting a new agentic makeover

Google I/O 2026 is here and yet again artificial intelligence and Agentic AI are at the front and centre of the event. This time, Google is not just claiming that it is getting smarter, it is also getting to work. There is a massive overhaul of the Gemini app moving from a conversational AI assistant to an active agent that works around the clock and also acts on your behalf. Here are some of the biggest changes coming to Gemini. Also read: Google wants to compete with Claude Mythos with its new CodeMender, here is how The most significant announcement today has been the release of Gemini Spark - an AI agent that works tirelessly even when you're no longer actively engaging with your laptop or mobile device. Powered by Gemini 3.5 and a novel infrastructure layer dubbed the Antigravity harness, Spark plugs into your Workspace applications, including Gmail, Docs, and Slides, allowing you to schedule tasks, train new workflows, and get it to synthesize meeting notes into documents and emails automatically. Before Spark takes control of your day, Daily Brief is here to start it off. The new agent gathers all the important emails from Gmail, highlights future Calendar events, and presents them in one prioritized briefing with actionable suggestions on how to proceed further. This agent learns about your tastes based on your thumbs up or down response. Daily Brief becomes available to Plus, Pro, and Ultra members starting today in the US. Also read: Google I/O 2026: Samsung and Google unveil Gemini-powered smart glasses to rival Ray-Ban Meta On the creative front, Google announces the launch of Gemini Omni - a brand new multimodal model that turns text, images, and videos into quality videos. Imagine doing things like applying cinematic zooms, changing backgrounds, or inserting yourself in the video with an AI-generated avatar. This model is for content creators looking for quality results without spending too much on equipment or knowledge. Gemini Omni is becoming available starting today to Plus, Pro, and Ultra members worldwide. But Gemini itself is getting a major face-lift as well. Neural Expressive adds fluid animations, bright colors, typography, and haptic feedback support across Android, iOS, and the web. Responses, meanwhile, get a much-needed formatting upgrade, allowing Gemini to return interactive timelines, colorful imagery, and video narration of results related to your search question. Again, this one is live for everyone worldwide right now. The least talked-about part of today's announcements is the aggressive third-party integration efforts being made by Google. Canva, OpenTable, and Instacart are among the first to add their services to MCP today, with more partnerships to follow. Once Spark gains access to these partnerships, which is coming in the weeks ahead, it will be able to handle tasks such as reserving tables and generating grocery lists autonomously. Today, Gemini sits at 900 million monthly active users across 230 countries, more than twice the number it had a year ago at I/O. But with the launch of Spark and Daily Brief, Google has made its intention clear. It doesn't matter who has the smartest AI. The future battle will be waged between agents we trust enough to take care of our lives in our absence.