Almost six months after launching Genie 3, a successor has arrived with more control, more detail and longer runtimes.
Running on a combination of Genie 3, Nano Banana Pro and Gemini, the new model produces 60 second (up from 30) fully generated, playable 3D worlds.
Continue reading “Google intros Project Gemini – real-time, playable 3D worlds from prompts”
The new side panel (no longer a pop-up) is powered by Gemini 3 and goes big on agentic browsing. It can connect to your Gmail, Calendar, Youtube, Shopping and Flights information and can multitask to do things like booking flights from an email invitation.
It can even use your browsers stored passwords to log into shopping sites and complete your order, after finding your purchase in an embedded image.
It’s also getting Nano Banana to manipulate images right from the websites you are reading.
Everything should be ready to go in the new update for U.S. subscribers, and Google says Personal Intelligence will likely come in a few months.
Read more: Google’s announcement and thread, The Verge, Gizmodo.
It’s an investigation («proceeding») started under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), made to ensure major platform owners don’t abuse their power, and Google now has six months to find a workable solution.
Gemini enjoys system-level and app-level access on Android, and many competitors have flagged this as a violation of the DMA.
— We are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation, says Clare Kelly, Google’s Senior Competition Counsel to Reuters.
If no relief is found on the issue, the DMA allows for fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.
Read more: The Commission’s statement, Engadget, Reuters.
These subscriptions were intended as a low cost alternative for developing countries, but are now bringing a little extra for a low price in developed countries, too.
Google is famously stingy with declaring usage limits, and says Plus will give you «more access» in the Gemini app.
It will also let you access Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro. In addition to this, you get 200 monthly ai «credits» towards generating video in Flow, meaning the video model Veo 3.1.
Plus also offers 200 GB of Google One storage, and access to Gemini in Gmail, and other workspace apps.
Read more: Writeups on 9to5Google and TechCrunch.
We’re launching full-length, on demand practice exams for standardized tests in @GeminiApp, starting with the SAT, available now at no cost.
Practice SATs are grounded in rigorously vetted content in partnership with @ThePrincetonRev, and Gemini will provide immediate feedback… pic.twitter.com/GmivPuBp7B
— Google (@Google) January 21, 2026
Google is touting Gemini’s education features while launching the beginning of a larger program for standard educational tests.
Starting with the American SAT exam, you can now practice with «rigorously vetted» tests right in Gemini — and when you’re done, it will tell you where you went right and wrong.
Continue reading “Gemini teams with The Princeton Review for realistic, practice SAT tests”
Flow is a wrapper for AI generated videos, using the popular Veo 3.1 — one of the most advanced generators out there.
The expanded access is for Business and Enterprise (9 million users), and Education plans — which has 170 million users.
These plans can now also access the popular Nano Banana Pro service, letting users generate pictures from anything they can imagine.
The Flow service was previously reserved for Gemini Pro and Ultra users, who could generate 8 second, high quality 4K AI videos in widescreen or vertical formats, and daisy chain them for even longer ones.
The service now dwarves OpenAI’s Sora 2 service, which had 6 million total downloads in January 2026.
Read more: The Verge, and Google’s support document.
Now you get separate usage limits for the models, so you no longer drain your Pro pool by using the Thinking model or vice versa.
At the same time, Google is upgrading the total limits for the Thinking model to up to 300 prompts per day for the Pro plan, while leaving the Pro model allocation at 100 per day.
Ultra subscribers get 500 daily prompts on the Pro model and 1,500 prompts on the Thinking model.
The upgrade is due to user feedback, writes 9to5Google, quoting Google:
— Many of you want more precision and transparency when deciding which model to use for your daily tasks.
Read more: Google: Rate limits on Gemini, writeups on 9to5Google, Mashable.
Personal Intelligence, launched today, lets Gemini and, later, AI Mode, draw information from Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube and Search history to give you a more «personalized» experience.
Continue reading “Google launches Personal Intelligence, based on trove of data held on people”
The system was co-developed with the likes of Walmart, Target, Shopify, Etsy and Wayfair — many of whom also worked on similar efforts with OpenAI’s checkout and apps earlier.
It’s a «new open standard for agents and systems to talk to each other across every step of the shopping journey,» Sundar Pichai says on x.com.
One feature is the Business Agent, that will answer product questions in the «brand’s voice,» Engadget writes. This agent will also let advertisers «present exclusive offers» to shoppers who are ready to buy.
Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify says the platform can transact with any merchant, and that agents can now handle anything from discovery to fulfillment, and deal with everything from discounts, subscriptions and loyalty programs.
Read more: Engadget, Axios and TechCrunch.
Email volume is at an all-time high, Google says, and «managing your inbox and the flow of information has become as important as the emails themselves.»
Continue reading “Gemini is coming to Gmail: Google is rolling out new AI features”
Google already has a «Gemini Robotics» arm, and has been looking for partners, TechCrunch writes — and Boston Dynamics has been looking for an advanced AI model.
The new Atlas humanoid was made its first official debut yesterday at CES, and will be put to work in Hyundai’s U.S. factories by 2028, handling tasks that are either too dangerous or too strenuous for humans.
The trick is to build a proper world model for robots to train on, but Google is pretty advanced in this space.
— We are excited to begin working with the Boston Dynamics team to explore what’s possible with their new Atlas robot as we develop new models, says Carolina Parada, Senior Director of Robotics at Google DeepMind in a release.
Read more: Boston Dynamics’ press release, more on Atlas. Writeups, detail from TechCrunch, Mashable.
The model is especially good at agentic workflows, and in fast reasoning, Google says.
On the benchmarks it performs stunningly well for the price, even beating Gemini 3 Pro at MMMU-Pro, which tests for multimodal understanding. It also ticks in at 33.7% in Humanity’s Last Exam, just a little below GPT-5.2.
Google has priced the model for efficiency, too, with a cost of $0.50 for 1 million tokens of input, and $3.00 for the same output. This is substantially lower than 3 Pro and is only beaten by Grok 4.1 Fast and Gemini 2.5 Flash.
The model is rolling out in all channels as of today, and will become the default in the Gemini app and on the web, as well as in AI Mode, where it will much improve reasoning.
Read more: Google: launch page, for developers, and in AI Mode. Writeups at The Verge, 9to5Google and Engadget.
Apple has had this function in the US since iOS 26 in June, 2025, and just rolled out the functionality in Europe in iOS 26.2.
The idea is to use Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio as the base model, to «preserve the tone, emphasis and cadence of each speaker,» according to 9to5Google.
The feature is only available in the USA, Mexico and India so far, and only on Android, but Google says «we’ll be bringing it to iOS and more countries in 2026.»
All you need to do is tap the «Live translate» button in the Google Translate app, point your phone in the direction of the speaker, and it will start translating, with an understanding of slang, idioms and euphemisms.
Apple is a little more quirky than Google, requiring the use of AirPods Pro 2 or 3, or AirPods 4 with ANC to work properly.
Read more: Google’s announcement, writeups on 9to5Google, Ars Technica. MacRumors on Apple’s capabilities.
They are mostly concerned with the glasses with internal screens, that can run bog standard Android apps as well as Android XR apps — and provides you with information right inside the glasses.
These spectacles, while impressive, connect via wire to a puck in your pocket that serves as a battery and trackpad in one, and use a phone or laptop for computing power, but they don’t have a release date as of yet.
Continue reading “Google demos smart glasses with Android XR, set to debut in 2026”
—The goal for us, and Google, is to make enterprise vibe-coding a thing, Replit founder and CEO Amjad Masad said; — We want to show the world that these tools are actually going to transform businesses and how people work.
Under the new agreement, Replit will expand its Google Cloud use and «further integrate Google’s models into its platform,» Google writes on the deal.
Replit will gain access to all of the Gemini models, and the deal will «help enterprise customers embrace vibe coding.»
— Our mission is to enable the next billion software creators — from hobbyists to entrepreneurs to enterprises, Masad said.
Read more: Google’s announcement, writeup on CNBC.
