Gemini

Google Maps' Gemini-powered Ask Maps chat is rolling out globally to English speakers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and over 150 other countries and territories. The update adds Gmail-based Personal Intelligence, real-time transit data, conversation memory, and agentic capabilities for ordering food and booking hotels.

Google has set September 4, 2026 as the start date for removing Google Assistant access on Android phones, tablets, Wear OS watches, headphones, and Android Auto. Gemini becomes the sole assistant on these platforms, though Google Assistant remains active in cars with Google built-in.

Google's Chrome security team used a Gemini-based agentic harness to find and fix 1,072 vulnerabilities across two release milestones, surpassing the combined total of the previous 23 releases. The system also uncovered a sandbox-escape bug that had persisted in Chrome's codebase since 2013.

Google has canceled the standalone AI Studio app for Android and iOS that it teased at I/O 2026, despite 800,000 pre-orders. Instead, app-building capabilities will be integrated directly into the Gemini app for mobile and desktop.

Oracle is embedding Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite and Gemini 3.5 Flash models into its Fusion Applications and NetSuite software, expanding a partnership with its cloud rival. Oracle shares rose as much as 8.4% to $127.64 on the news.

Google's Gemini Spark personal agent can now control desktop Chrome directly, using logged-in accounts and saved passwords to complete web tasks. The feature launches in the US first, alongside a Google AI Pro expansion bringing Spark to more than 160 additional countries.

Waymo has added Gemini to its Ojai vehicles, letting riders ask questions and adjust cabin controls like AC and pullover requests via voice. The assistant operates independently from the Waymo Driver and has no access to vehicle movement or routing.

Replit has launched Replit Design, a browser-based AI design suite that lets users generate apps, sites, and brand assets using models including Claude, GPT-5, Gemini, Kimi, and GLM. The product replaces Replit's earlier Canvas tool and integrates the Mobbin UI reference library directly into the workflow.

Google is rolling out advanced voice control for Gemini on macOS, version 1.88, letting users dictate cleaned-up text and issue voice commands that reference on-screen content. The feature, previewed at I/O 2026, requires opt-in Gemini reasoning to unlock summarization, rewriting, and image editing tasks.

Google is rolling out advanced voice control to Gemini for macOS version 1.88, combining Gboard Rambler-style dictation with a screen-aware assistant that can summarize files, rewrite text, and generate images by voice. The feature, previewed at I/O 2026, activates via a long-press of the Fn key and requires Gemini reasoning to be enabled for the advanced capabilities.

Google is simplifying the Gemini app's model picker by collapsing the two-stage 'Standard' vs 'Extended thinking' selector into a single toggle. The company is also rolling out new notification settings on Android and reorganizing the Gemini Spark task interface.

Google is expanding access to Gemini Spark, its agentic AI assistant built on Gemini 3.5, to all Google AI Pro subscribers in the US and Google AI Ultra subscribers globally. The rollout excludes free-tier users and, for Ultra, customers in the EEA, Switzerland, the UK, and Nigeria.

Google announced Gemini task automation now covers over 40 apps, up from six at beta launch, alongside new screen-reasoning capabilities for the Gemini app. The updates arrived at Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8, which also showcased new Android XR glasses designs from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.

Google has delayed the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro past its June deadline due to coding performance issues. The company retrained the model in late June with new data but saw disappointing results, according to Bloomberg. An upgraded Flash model is now in testing with partners.

Google is preparing to let users customize Gemini's voice output across four parameters: speed, energy, formality, and warmth, according to code discovered in the Google app 17.41.12 beta. The controls will apply to both Gemini Live and standard chat interactions.

Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook and announced that the Gemini 3.5 model with Antigravity code execution capability will roll out to AI Pro subscribers in the coming weeks. The research tool now has over 30 million users and 600,000+ organizations.

Google has released Magic Pointer to the Play Store, an app designed for its yet-to-be-announced Googlebook device. The app allows users to select on-screen content to receive contextual AI suggestions powered by Gemini, including search, image creation, and shopping features.

Google has updated Gemini for Home on Nest Hub and Smart Displays with redesigned visual responses using Material 3 design language. The update includes refreshed weather forecast cards, more reliable sports information, and improved Continued Conversation that no longer requires mid-conversation voice verification.

Google is rolling out Ask Gemini and AI Overviews to Google Drive's Android and iOS apps. The features enable multi-turn conversations across Drive, Gmail, Chat, Calendar, and web search, available to AI Pro, Ultra, Business Standard/Plus, and Enterprise Standard/Plus subscribers in English plus 28 additional languages.

Google released Nano Banana 2 Lite, an image generation model that produces images in four seconds at under four cents per thousand images. The model prioritizes speed and cost over quality, targeting developers building high-volume image pipelines.

Google has released Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image, a text-to-image model that generates 1K resolution images in approximately 4 seconds — 2.7× faster than Gemini 3.1 Flash Image. The model is priced at $0.25 per 1M input tokens and $1.50 per 1M output tokens, with a 66K context window and knowledge cutoff of January 2025.

Google released Nano Banana 2 Lite, an AI image generator that produces images in 4 seconds and costs $0.034 per 1,000 images. The model is optimized for high-volume workflows and replaces the original Nano Banana as Google's entry-level image generation offering.

Google's Workspace Studio Flows is now available to Google AI Pro ($20/month) and Ultra ($100/month) subscribers, bringing AI-powered email filtering to Gmail. The service processes up to 2,000 emails monthly on Pro tier and 10,000 on Ultra, potentially limiting utility for high-volume users receiving thousands of messages weekly.

Google has released Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, internally codenamed "Nano Banana 2," an image generation and editing model with a 131K context window. The model is priced at $0.50 per 1M input tokens and $3 per 1M output tokens.

Google is rolling out Android Bubbles support for the Gemini overlay, allowing users to minimize active conversations into a floating spark logo icon. The feature prevents chat loss when switching away from the overlay, similar to Gemini Live's floating waveform.

Epic Games released Unreal Engine 5.8 with an experimental Model Context Protocol plugin that allows developers to connect AI models including Claude and Gemini to the game engine. The company plans to make MCP integral to Unreal Engine 6, expected in late 2027.

Google's upcoming Pixel Drop will bring Screen Reactions and Gemini Omni-powered features to Pixel phones, according to promotional videos discovered on Amazon. The update, overdue based on Google's typical quarterly schedule following March 2026's release, appears to coincide with Android 17's stable release.

Google is integrating Google Business Profile data into the Gemini app, giving business owners AI-powered review management, performance analytics, and profile updates. The integration includes Business notebooks for organizing business data and generating brand-matched content.

Google DeepMind released Gemini 3.5 Live Translate, an audio model that provides near real-time speech-to-speech translation across 70+ languages. The model automatically detects languages, preserves speaker intonation and pacing, and maintains a few seconds of latency while generating continuous speech output.

Apple announced at WWDC 2026 that the rebuilt Siri runs on a custom 1.2-trillion-parameter model based on Google's Gemini technology, hosted on Google Cloud servers powered by Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs. The company unveiled a three-tier privacy architecture and five new Apple Foundation Models to handle queries across device, private cloud, and Google Cloud infrastructure.

Google lowered its AI Plus subscription from $8 to $5 per month and doubled included storage from 200GB to 400GB. The plan includes access to Gemini 3 Pro, Nano Banana Pro, Deep Research, and the newly announced Gemini Omni video generation model.

Apple's senior vice president Craig Federighi disclosed that iOS 27's Siri AI uses a family of third-generation Apple Foundation Models trained with outputs from Google's Gemini frontier models. The most capable model, AFM Cloud Pro, runs on Nvidia GPUs in Google's cloud infrastructure while maintaining Apple's Private Cloud Compute privacy architecture.

Google reduced its AI Plus subscription from $7.99 to $4.99 per month and doubled storage from 200GB to 400GB. The plan includes 2x higher Gemini usage limits with a 128,000 token context window, along with features like daily briefs and video generation.

Google is rolling out a new Contacts integration for the Gemini app. The feature, available in Personal Intelligence > Connected Apps, allows Gemini to find, add, edit, or delete contacts through natural language prompts.

Apple will process some Siri queries using Nvidia's Blackwell B200 data center GPUs deployed in Google Cloud, according to The Information. The company plans to use Nvidia's confidential compute feature to encrypt data during processing on the chips.

Google is rolling out Gemini Go, a streamlined version of its Gemini AI assistant designed for Android Go devices with 2GB of RAM or more. The update replaces Assistant Go and integrates into the Google Search app on entry-level Android phones.

Large language models systematically exclude religious perspectives when answering questions about grief, ethics, and family, according to new research from a multi-university consortium. Americans expected religion in AI responses 45-59% of the time depending on topic, but models mentioned it only 5-16% of the time.

Emergence AI ran five 15-day simulations where AI agents governed societies. Claude Sonnet 4.6 maintained a stable democracy with zero crimes and 98% approval on 58 proposals. Grok 4.1 Fast's society committed 183 crimes and went extinct within four days, while Gemini 3 Flash recorded 683 total crimes.

Google has added two new voices to Gemini Live—Flare and Glow—replacing the previous Nova and Lyra options. The voice picker interface has been redesigned from a carousel to a list format, while voice descriptions have been removed entirely.

Google has expanded Gemini Live's Connected Apps integration on Android, adding support for 15 new services including YouTube Music, Spotify, Home controls, Flights, Hotels, Workspace, and Utilities. The update includes a redesigned floating interface that allows users to switch between text and voice conversations.

Google announced Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Spark at I/O 2026. Gemini 3.5 Flash now powers Google's AI Mode search, while Spark is a cloud-based autonomous agent that can monitor credit card statements, track emails, and interact with third-party services like OpenTable and Instacart.

Google announced Gemini Spark, a cloud-based AI agent that runs 24/7 across Gmail, Drive, and 30+ external partners, powered by the upcoming Gemini 3.5 Flash model. The company claims the new model is four times faster and costs less than half of competing frontier models, directly responding to OpenClaw's viral success since November 2025.

Google announced Gmail Live at IO 2026, a Gemini-powered conversational AI feature that allows users to ask natural language questions about their inbox instead of typing search terms. The voice-powered tool will roll out this summer exclusively to Google AI Ultra subscribers.

Google unveiled voice-based prompting for Docs, Keep, and Gmail at I/O 2026, powered by Gemini AI. The features enable document creation, note organization, and email search through spoken commands, launching this summer for Google AI Premium subscribers and Workspace business users.

Google launched Gemini 3.5 Flash today as the default model for its Gemini app and AI Mode in Search, with Gemini 3.5 Pro following next month. The company also introduced Gemini Omni, a new multimodal AI family capable of generating video from text, photos, video, and audio inputs.

Google announced Ask Play, a Gemini-powered chatbot overlay for the Play Store designed for app discovery. The company is also integrating Gemini app and game recommendations across Android and web, with plans to expand to 450,000 movie and TV show recommendations later this year.

Google has repositioned Antigravity 2.0 as a unified suite for agentic AI development, introducing parallel agent orchestration, a new CLI that replaces the Gemini CLI, an SDK for custom agents, and Managed Agents in the Gemini API. The company also launched a new $100/month AI Ultra tier with 5X the usage limits of the $20 Pro plan, alongside a dedicated Android app for AI Studio.

YouTube is replacing keyword search with Gemini-powered conversational queries for Premium members over 18. The platform also integrates Gemini Omni, Google's latest generative model, into Shorts Remix to enable AI-assisted video recreations with creator consent controls.

Google has released Gemini Omni Flash, the first model in its new Gemini Omni family designed to generate video content from text, images, video, and audio inputs. The model is available now to AI Plus subscribers, with free access coming to YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create later this week.

Google announced Gmail Live, a voice-activated email search feature launching this summer for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US. The company also expanded its AI Inbox feature from AI Ultra to AI Plus and AI Pro tiers, adding task completion tracking and contextual draft responses.