Google

Google will start migrating Gemini's custom Gems into a new feature called skills on November 17, 2026. Skills, introduced alongside Gemini Spark, let users invoke multiple custom instruction sets at once using a slash command in the prompt box.

Google is testing 'Call for Me,' a feature that lets Gemini call businesses on a user's behalf to make reservations, reschedule appointments, or check stock. The beta is limited to Pixel 11 owners in the US with a paid Gemini subscription and Google's beta Phone app.

Google has added Live Avatar to its Gemini 3.8 Live dialogue models, pairing real-time video personas with voice AI for enterprise customer service and sales use cases. The feature is restricted to Gemini Enterprise customers via allowlisting and includes SynthID watermarking on all generated video.

Google DeepMind's new head Koray Kavukcuoglu says Gemini 4 is in early post-training and could ship well before year-end, following the quiet cancellation of Gemini 3.5 Pro. He downplayed the AGI question that defined predecessor Demis Hassabis's tenure, calling it 'not the right conversation.'

Google has released Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Flash-Lite TTS, two speech generation models that let users design voices from text descriptions or clone a voice from a 30-second sample. Both support over 100 languages and roll out now through the Gemini API and Google AI Studio.

YouTube is adding a suite of AI tools to Creator Studio, including a script-and-edit coaching assistant, dynamic thumbnail testing, and a Gemini-powered chat editor for Shorts. The company also plans AI live translation and voice-based deepfake detection.

Gemini for macOS version 1.116.5.889 introduces a new @messages Connected App that can send texts, read conversations, and search message history in Apple Messages. The feature is visible in Settings but not yet functional, as a server-side component appears incomplete.

Google is rolling out an iMessage integration to the Gemini app for macOS, letting the assistant send messages and search conversation history via a new @messages connected app. The feature arrived in version 1.116.5.889 but is not yet fully functional server-side.

Google has repositioned CC, its email-and-calendar AI agent, as a household management tool for families. The updated agent, powered by Gemini and Google's Antigravity framework, can handle permission slips, meal plans, and shared calendars for up to six family members, but remains limited to U.S. adults with personal Gmail accounts.

Google Research has released TimesFM-3, a 330-million-parameter time series forecasting model that predicts outcomes like sales by combining related variables, historical data, and known future events such as discounts or weather. The model claims top rankings on three benchmarks against Amazon's Chronos-2 and the Toto-2.0 family.

Google has released the Gemini for desktop app on Windows, five months after its macOS launch in April 2026. The app offers instant AI access via an Alt + Space shortcut, including Gemini Spark agent features and Nano Banana image/video generation.

Google has upgraded Gemini's side panel in Workspace apps so every instance—Gmail, Drive, Docs, Slides, and Chat—now shares the same feature set. Users can create documents, spreadsheets, and slide decks or schedule meetings from any app rather than switching to the app that originally hosted that function.

Google has made Daily Brief in the Gemini app free for US personal accounts, removing the prior Google AI subscription requirement. The feature, introduced at I/O 2026, generates a morning to-do list using Gmail, Calendar, and past Gemini chats via Personal Intelligence.

Google is rolling out a Find Hub update adding a 'Remembered' tab that uses Gemini to track where users store everyday items like passports or keys. The feature, part of version 3.1.732-02, is not yet widely available.

Google has released Lyria 3.5, a new AI music generation model, directly inside the Gemini app alongside availability in AI Studio, Flow Music, and Vids. Google claims the model was trained exclusively on licensed content and produces more expressive vocals than its predecessor.

Google is widely rolling out a new Minimize button for the Gemini overlay on Android, which collapses conversations into a floating bubble users can drag or tap to expand. The feature currently supports six fixed positions and has a reported bug that resets bubble placement after each minimization.

Google announced that Gemini Spark, its personal AI agent, can now execute tasks directly inside Google Photos—editing images, curating albums, and turning flyers into calendar events. The rollout begins over the next few weeks for Gemini AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S.

Google is extending Gemini Spark's agentic control to Google Photos, enabling automated photo curation, editing, album creation, and sharing through natural-language multi-step commands. The rollout begins this week for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US.

Google released Gemini 3.8 Flash just weeks after Gemini 3.7 Flash, keeping the same per-token pricing of $0.75/$3.75 per million input/output tokens but warning it may consume more tokens overall. The model also ships with a cyber-focused variant restricted to a new government partner program called Fairwind.

Google's Gemini 3.8 Flash has surfaced on OpenRouter with a 1-million-token context window and discounted pricing of $0.75 per 1M input tokens and $3.75 per 1M output tokens. Google has not issued a separate public announcement, and the listed release date of September 2, 2026 is unusually far out, leaving key details unconfirmed.

Google is rolling out agent-based video analysis for Gemini Flash models that dynamically searches footage instead of scanning frame by frame. Google claims the approach cuts token usage by up to 88 percent and costs by 66 percent while improving accuracy, with no added API fee.

Google is launching Pics, an AI image creation and editing tool powered by its Nano Banana model, positioning it as a prompt-first alternative to Canva and Adobe Express. The tool rolls out first in Google Docs and Slides for Workspace and Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers, with Drive support to follow.

Google has begun broadly rolling out Pics, its AI image generation and editing app built on Nano Banana, to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers plus Business and Enterprise Workspace plans. The app supports object segmentation, text translation in 29 languages, and 4K upscaling, with direct integration into Docs and Slides.

Google is switching Gemini Notebook from fixed daily feature limits to compute-based usage limits that factor in prompt complexity, chat length, and sources used. The change, mirroring a May update to the Gemini app, rolls out to consumer accounts on September 2, 2026.

Google has released Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, a new speech-to-text model that automatically detects over 85 languages, removes filler words, and structures unstructured speech into clean text. The model powers Android's Rambler feature and is rolling out to Chrome, Docs, Gmail, and other Google products.

Google is rolling out new productivity integrations for Gemini Live, including Spark support for AI Pro subscribers, deep Gmail access, Daily Brief summaries, and cross-chat Memory. The update lets users manage multi-step tasks across Docs, Sheets, and Drive using voice commands alone.

Google has released Gemini 3.5 Transcribe, a speech-to-text model claiming a 4.0% word error rate in streaming mode and 2.6% in non-streaming mode, according to benchmarks from Artificial Analysis. The model already powers Gboard Rambler on Android and the Gemini app for macOS, with Chrome support coming next.

Google Cloud has launched Gemini Enterprise for Legal, a preview product that connects its Gemini models to legal software like iManage, DocuSign, Everlaw, RelativityOne, and Harvey via MCP connectors. The tool automates contract review, legal research, and regulatory tracking while respecting existing permission structures.

A new 'Device Help' tool has appeared in the Gemini app's plus menu on Pixel 11 Pro devices running Google app beta 17.52. The Labs-badged feature offers conversational assistance for settings, troubleshooting, and device management, but is not available on the base Pixel 11 or older phones.

Google has updated Gboard's Writing tools on the Pixel 11 with a new 'Suggested' tab powered by Gemini Intelligence. The feature drafts personalized message suggestions using typing history and on-screen context, processed via Google's Private AI Compute.

Google announced new study features across Search and Gemini, including AI-generated interactive visuals, 3D simulations, customized practice quizzes, and a dedicated learning hub. The rollout intensifies competition with OpenAI and education startups like Knowt and Gauth for student users.

Google VP Josh Woodward announced a new toggle that lets users remove visible sparkle-icon watermarks from AI-generated content made with Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria. The invisible SynthID watermark and C2PA metadata will remain unaffected, and the toggle won't roll out in the EU or South Korea where visible labeling is legally required.

Google announced users can now toggle off visible watermarks on AI-generated images, video, and songs from its Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. Invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata remain in place for transparency.

Gemini 3.7 Flash has replaced 3.6 Flash in the Gemini app's model picker on Android, iOS, web, and macOS, following its debut in the Spark agent a day earlier. The app also now lets users turn off visible corner watermarks on AI-generated images, video, and music.

Google has released Gemini 3.7 Flash, a multimodal model built for agentic workflows, coding, and multi-step reasoning. It offers a 1,049K token context window and is priced at $0.38 per million input tokens and $1.88 per million output tokens, available now via OpenRouter.

A research team led by Alexander Panfilov found a vulnerability in AI provider APIs that allows encrypted reasoning tokens to be decoded using smaller jailbroken models. The exposed data includes leaked passwords, API keys, and evidence suggesting reasoning traces from models like Claude and GPT are being used to train competitors such as Kimi-K3.

Google is adding agentic capabilities to Google Maps' Ask Maps feature, letting users order food, book hotels, and buy event tickets directly through the app. A new Personal Intelligence feature, off by default, lets Ask Maps pull context from Gmail and Calendar to personalize responses.

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's agentic AI assistant Spark now integrates with Chrome, letting it use logged-in accounts and saved passwords to handle tasks like researching flights and scheduling apartment viewings. The feature is rolling out in the US now, alongside expanded Spark access for Google AI Pro subscribers in over 160 countries.

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'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.

Google released Lyria 3.5, a music generation model that lets users edit individual sections of a track—vocals, drums, bass—without regenerating the whole song. The model is available now through Google Flow Music and produces tracks from 30 seconds to 3 minutes.

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.

OpenAI released GPT Transcribe and GPT Live Transcribe, improving word error rate to 3.31 percent and cutting prices 25 percent to $0.0045 per minute. Independent benchmarks still place OpenAI behind ElevenLabs, Google, and Mistral on transcription accuracy.

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 has confirmed it is training Gemini 4 in what it calls its 'most ambitious pre-training run yet,' with CEO Sundar Pichai saying the next-generation model will need a 'much larger base model' to compete at the frontier. No specs, benchmarks, or firm release date have been disclosed, though historical cadence points to a November or December 2026 launch.

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 is rolling out a July 2026 update to Gemini for Home that extends conversational memory to 15 minutes across the entire experience and brings Gemini Live to the first-generation Google Home Mini and Nest Hub. The update ships alongside Google Home app version 4.22 and new Nest Cam firmware focused on connectivity and reliability fixes.