Google AI agents arrive with continuous tracking for stocks, news, and everyday tasks

How to use Google's new information agents | TechCrunch

At the 2026 Google I/O keynote, the tech giant revealed new agentic capabilities in Search, where users can create, customize, and manage multiple AI agents to stay updated on topics of interest. The announcement is part of Google's larger push toward agentic AI systems that can take initiative and assist with ongoing tasks instead of only answering one question at a time. Unlike traditional search tools that respond only when prompted, Google's information agents are designed to operate continuously in the background, 24/7, helping users stay informed about their interests without needing to repeatedly search for the same information every day. Instead of delivering a list of links, the agents can synthesize information from multiple sources, explain why something matters, compare perspectives, and provide actionable insights. In many ways, the agents represent the next evolution of Google Alerts, the notification service Google launched in 2003. However, these agents are designed to go beyond simple notifications. For instance, someone following the stock market could create an information agent focused on specific companies, share price, or economic trends. The agent could monitor market activity throughout the day, track breaking news, summarize earnings reports, alert users when major changes happen, and provide summaries and links to learn more. It could also help with everyday tasks, such as tracking flight prices for upcoming trips, monitoring sports teams and live events, following breaking news, keeping tabs on housing or job market trends, and tracking weather or traffic. To use the feature, users can open AI Mode in Search and enter a prompt. For example: "keep me updated on nearby movie tickets for 'The Mandalorian and Grogu'." When something relevant appears, the Google app sends a push notification. You'll also see your active tracked topics in your AI Mode history, where you can jump back in to manage, refine, or turn off an alert. Information agents will be available this summer. The company is first rolling them out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S., then to additional markets later on. In addition to these information agents, Google also introduced a major redesign of Search itself, including what it describes as a reimagined "intelligent search box," the company's biggest change to Search in more than 25 years. The new interface is designed to support longer, more conversational queries. There's also a new AI-powered query suggestion system that goes beyond traditional autocomplete, helping users craft nuanced and context-aware searches.

Google Search Goes Agentic -- and Doesn't Need You Anymore

AI agents are everywhere. Every briefing I've attended for software companies over the past year has involved some mention of agents -- using generative AI tools to automate digital tasks. Despite breakout moments at the start of 2026, like the plucky OpenClaw agent that early adopters used to manage their online life, most people are not yet embracing this style of automation day to day. That won't last for long if Google gets its way. At Google I/O, the tech behemoth shared its vision to make its popular search engine a core way to expose billions of existing users to the company's agentic prowess. "You will be able to create, customize, and manage multiple AI agents for your many tasks, right in Search," says Liz Reid, who leads Search at Google. She gives the example of setting up an agent to track stock market trends and send you alerts using real-time data -- when specific conditions are met. Alongside these agentic additions coming to Search, Google also announced a new underlying model, Gemini 3.5 Flash, as the global default model for AI Mode answers, as well as improvements to the Search box that make it more responsive to user inputs. One of the key agentic experiences rolling out is a new form of dynamic data gathering through "information agents" that can be more proactive than previous search experiences and automate alerts through your conversational requests. "Ask Google to just keep you updated on anything, and now our agents can do work for you even if you're not using Google," says Robby Stein, a vice president of product for Search. "So, you could be asleep, and it's still helping you." This feature will arrive first for subscribers to Google's AI Pro and Ultra plans this summer. In Google's example of how these can work, a user asks AI Mode through the Google app to keep them "updated when any of my favorite athletes announce sneaker collabs or signature drops." Then, AI Mode generates an info agent unique to that user, designed to monitor the request. When a new shoe drops that fits these criteria, like A'ja Wilson's pink Nikes, the user gets a notification alert with critical context and ways to buy the sneaks. Booking agents are another automation style in Search that Google will be expanding this summer. At previous I/O conferences, Google debuted similar AI features, like the now defunct Duplex, which called companies on your behalf to set up restaurant reservations or salon appointments. Google continues to iterate on that core idea with agents that can search for relevant context about local companies, even calling that barber down the street for a price quote on a beard trim if it doesn't show up on the website, to help users gather info with less active participation.

If Google can't make AI agents useful, maybe no one can

For years, tech companies have promised AI will give everyone a capable personal assistant but delivered something more like a clueless intern. Over the past six months, that has started to change, thanks largely to the viral open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw. And among the top AI labs now chasing similar success, one seems particularly well-poised to make agents succeed at a large scale: Google. At I/O 2026, Google announced new AI agents for gathering information, planning events, summarizing your inbox and calendar, and more. The agents can run continuously in the background, and the company claims they'll seamlessly integrate into Google's own tools and external ones. It's also expanding its developer tools and revamping Search with additional generative AI capabilities. Some are rolling out this week, and some will be available in the coming months, but the company's strategy seems clear: adopt some of the features that have helped fuel OpenClaw's success and amplify them with Google's deep knowledge of our digital presence. "Before this, I think AI agents were more of an idea in research," Koray Kavukcuoglu, CTO of Google DeepMind and Google's chief AI architect, told The Verge in an interview. This year, he hopes, they'll be "really in our lives." AI agents have been a buzzword since just after ChatGPT's launch in late 2022, but they remained mostly a science-fiction concept until the rise of OpenClaw, which has gained millions of users since its launch last November. OpenClaw let people chat with their agents via everyday apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, and (as long as a laptop was open) the agents could run around the clock. They performed well enough to handle basic tasks reliably, albeit with some clear flaws. It made all the AI labs immediately sit up and take notice, but OpenAI was one of the first players to take action, acquiring OpenClaw (though it remains open-source) in February and hiring its creator Peter Steinberger. But Google's existing empire of services gives it a major leg up. Where OpenClaw drove adoption by integrating with tools people already used, Google can do this too via MCP, but also build deeper links into its in-house suite of products, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Photos, and Search. If anything, it's surprising it took so long. One of Google's big bets this year is Gemini Spark, its new AI agent for consumers. Google promises Gemini Spark can perform tasks across Google's own services and more than 30 external partners coming soon, including Dropbox, Uber, and Spotify. Gemini Spark is cloud-based; it can run 24/7 without keeping a laptop open and can sync across the web, Android, and iOS. The agent rolls out to trusted testers this week, and a beta will be available in the US next week on Google's Ultra plan. Google touts the typical uses for Gemini Spark, like shopping, researching, and coordinating with other people's schedules and plans. Google also hopes people will find their own uses. Josh Woodward, Google's Gemini app lead, says he's been using Gemini Spark to plan a neighborhood block party, deploying agents to track RSVPs and what attendees are bringing, send reminders, and figure out when his homeowners' association allows placing a giant inflatable. Outside Spark, Google is also introducing the Daily Brief, a morning update similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT Pulse. Gemini Spark isn't available yet, but if it works the way Google says it does, it could be a big step forward for traditional tech companies' AI agents. Google's earliest agentic experiments completed tasks at a snail's pace while hijacking your browser. By last year's Gemini 3 release, its agents worked well for some jobs -- like cleaning out an inbox -- but still failed at others. Now, Google is taking a promising step by mirroring some key elements of OpenClaw: long-running agents that operate around the clock in the background, giving them the ability to have a lot more context about their tasks -- and giving users the ability to text and email their agents directly. Starting this summer, Google's AI search, too, is getting agents -- and promising to finally do more than eat up screen real estate and recommend pizza with glue. Its "information agents" are supposed to perform continuous background research -- like tracking stock market shifts or weather for the best picnic day. Google also announced an expansion to Antigravity, the agentic development platform it introduced about six months ago. A new standalone Antigravity desktop app will serve as a central hub for agent interaction, and the whole system is now designed as a platform to build and manage autonomous agents, Google says. The expansion follows on the heels of similar tools from OpenAI and Anthropic, which have tried to broaden their successful coding services to more approachable tools for non-programmers. All this will be underpinned by a new model series: Gemini 3.5, whose initial entry Gemini 3.5 Flash should be available next month. The model is supposed to have significantly better coding capabilities than Gemini 3, which was released to great fanfare last November. It's clearly intended to leapfrog updates from Anthropic, which is known for its coding prowess, and OpenAI. Gemini 3.5 Flash is especially good "when deploying multiple agents simultaneously and completing long-running tasks," Kavukcuoglu told reporters Monday. It's also supposed to be four times faster than other frontier models and less than half (or in some cases, one third of) the price -- a fact that's relevant to 24/7 AI agents, with token costs that quickly add up. In the world of AI agents, Google will still be playing catch-up with the one-man team behind OpenClaw. But it's a long-standing frontrunner in the AI race, and its app has the benefit of scale: It now serves more than 900 million users per month, executives told reporters on Monday, in more than 230 countries and more than 70 languages. Compared to dedicated AI companies under increasing financial pressure, it's able to at least temporarily subsidize costs to attract users. And while its agents haven't yet had to weather the real world, they're headed in a promising direction. If any AI company can make agents truly useful, it's Google. If it can't, it won't have many excuses to fall back on -- and the whole idea might need a rethink.