Google I/O produced a flurry of AI announcements, as expected, and since it’s hard to keep up with everything they launched, here is a small recap.
Read on for the news in short on the new Gemini, the Omni video model, new subscription plans, the Gemini Spark agent and the revamped search box…
Continue reading “Recapping Google I/O: New Gemini, video generator and search box”
The general idea is to have an AI system be aware of where or what you are pointing at, and then use the microphone on your computer to give simple commands without careful prompting.
This should allow for easier AI interactions like «show me directions» when looking at a building, or «book a table» while hovering over a restaurant.
This sort of pointer needs the OS or app to be context-aware, and there is no system like this yet. It is, however, rolling out in Gemini in Chrome «starting today,» and will roll out «soon» as Magic Pointer, a major feature of the freshly announced Googlebook.
It is also available to test in AI Studio, where you can use it to edit an image or find places on a map. Do note that the system uses your microphone.
Read more: Google’s blog, 9to5Google.
Under the Digital Markets Act, Google isn’t just another vendor — it’s one of seven dominant platforms, deemed «gatekeepers» to other services. That means it has to behave like a platform, like Windows, and offer equal access to its services.
The European Commission lists letting competing AI assistants have easy access to functions like sending emails, sharing and editing photos — and have system level access to control apps. It should also provide Android API access and support for free, they say.
Continue reading “The European Union starts process to open up Android to AI competitors”
Once installed, it can be launched from the menu bar or by pressing Option+Space on the keyboard.
The app goes a bit further than ChatGPT on the Mac, letting you share your entire screen with Gemini, or just select apps, and otherwise has everything the web interface offers, 9to5Google reports.
The app/window sharing lets Gemini answer questions about spreadsheets, reports, web pages or code bases, Google says.
Read more: Get the app on Google, writeups on 9to5Google, MacRumors and Ars Technica.
The test, conducted on the Gemini 3 generation of AI Overviews, was made using the SimpleQA dataset intended to probe for chatbot accuracy. It contains more than 4,000 questions with real, verifiable answers, that was made by OpenAI in 2024, Ars Technica reports.
Google’s AI answer machine pops up on every query these days, but it is difficult to tell precisely which model it uses for each task. For simple web searches, it might well opt for one of the faster Flash models rather than the more advanced Pro. It might also give different answers to the same question just milliseconds apart.
Google also doesn’t like the measurement being used, telling the NYT that «This study has serious holes. It doesn’t reflect what people are actually searching on Google.»
Read more: New York Times, Ars Technica.
The first step is to simply prompt the bot you are switching from to output your preferences, or its memories, and it will provide them in a prompt reply. This can then be pasted into Gemini.
The second feature will import your entire chat history — up to 5GB of it. Doing this is a little more complicated and involves a trip to the settings panel, but it should result in getting a zip file from your provider, which can be uploaded to Google.
From there on, Gemini promises to pick up right where you left off with the other chatbot, and you won’t have to train a whole new AI. Anthropic already does this.
Read more: Google’s presentation, step-by-step tweet, writeups on Engadget and The Verge.
Starting in June, if users have Gemini or Claude installed on their phones, Siri will be able to use those bots instead, by recording their preferred «Extension» in Settings.
That would end the ChatGPT monopoly that OpenAI has enjoyed since 2024, and opens up the chatbot ecosystem to other players, likely staving off regulators.
Opening up the platform is for the system level Siri queries native to iOS itself, and must not be confused with the standalone Siri app, which will use Gemini in a billion dollar deal.
Read more: Bloomberg (paywalled), Gizmodo, Reuters, and MacRumors.
That entails that they can run «distillation» on the model, meaning they can use it to provide answers and reasoning over a wide array of tasks and use that to train smaller, more capable Apple models, MacRumors says.
Distillation is a controversial technique, and many of the big AI labs have been accusing Chinese startups of doing it to make their own models more capable.
Apple can also tinker with Gemini, to make it give responses that Apple likes, MacRumors writes.
The Gemini model is optimized for chatbots and coding, and might not always produce the kinds of answers that Apple wants, they note.
Read more: The Information (paywalled), MacRumors.
It is intended to let you «explore ideas quickly» with a «high quality outcome.»
The app can take input from text, images, or code, and provides you with an entire design language that you can pick and choose from, with an «infinite» canvas storing your ideas.
It should be equally good at designing for the web and apps, but does come out as somewhat boilerplate and generic.
I tried to get it to brainstorm a little about improving the design of this webpage, and the results were terrible, but it might be worth it for other projects.
The improved Stitch is available at stitch.withgoogle.com and can be accessed for free anywhere Gemini is available.
Read more: Google’s introduction, launch tweet.
— People are appreciating the highly tailored help they’re getting in AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, Google says.
Personal intelligence can be useful for anything that involves your history with Google, like searching for another pair of sneakers you already bought, shopping for a bag to go with said shoes — or are planning a travel itinerary based on past preferences.
You need to be signed into a personal Google account for it to work, and it is not available for Workspace business, Enterprise, or Education users, TechCrunch notes.
The feature is also explicitly opt-in, and you have to choose to turn it on. There are also granular controls for disabling each app or service, so you can opt out of having Gemini scour your previous web searches and use them in replies, for instance.
Read more: Google’s announcement, TechCrunch and 9to5Google.
The chatbots cleared for «drafting and editing documents, summarizing information, preparing talking points and briefing material, and conducting research and analysis» are ChatGPT Enterprise, Gemini on Workspace and Copilot, according to Business Insider.
Anthropic’s Claude is not on the list, although it has been approved for use in The House of Representatives since September 2024. President Trump earlier said government agencies shouldn’t use Claude after the Pentagon spat in February.
The Sergeant at Arms will now provide all Senate employees with an AI chatbot license at no cost. The office also touts Copilot Chat as integrated with Office 365 and is usable with Word and Excel — although Claude also offers this capability.
Read more: Business Insider has the memo, NY Times reported it first. Popvox has a Congressional AI tracker.
The feature is supposed to work great for questions of where to find the nearest restroom, or a cozy vegan restaurant nearby — and it even lets you book a table right from the app.
To achieve this, Gemini will scan information from the Maps database consisting of some 300 million places and reviews from over 500 million contributors to find you just the right spot.
Ask Maps also remembers your previous saved spots or queries, so it will know that you are vegetarian, say, or if you have any special needs or preferences.
Of course, once you find a spot, Maps will help you navigate to get there — and in the biggest update in a decade, you now get a 3D driving experience.
Ask Maps is only available on mobile in the USA and India, with desktop support «coming soon.»
Read more: Google’s announcement, The Verge, Engadget.
Gemini in Chrome adds a new side panel, letting you chat with Gemini without opening up a new tab, and can do things like summarize or interact with web pages. It can connect to Gmail, Calendar, YouTube, Shopping and flights information.
It also comes with Nano Banana features, so you can try an apartment listing picture with your own furniture, for example.
In addition to the three new countries, which are mostly English-speaking, Google is announcing support for another 50 languages.
This of course includes Hindi, but there is also support for French, Spanish, Chinese and lots of other European languages.
Read more: Google’s announcement. Writeups on TechCrunch and Engadget.
Starting in June 2026, Canal+ will be providing producers with access to Veo 3, which will help creators «pre-visualize scenes before shooting,» or help recreate history from a single image.
They will also be indexing its extensive content library to use in a Gemini-powered recommendation engine, creating a massive, multimodal database of sound, video, and text data.
Canal+ recently bought the pan-African boradcaster MultiChoice, extending the reach of its app and services to some 70 countries, as they are racing toward a target of 100 million streaming users, and hope to compete with the American streaming giants.
Read more: Canal+ press release, Reuters report.
— Today, we’re making Gemini in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive more personal, capable and collaborative to help you get things done, faster, Google says.
All these apps can now draw on information from your Drive, Gmail, Chat and web search to draft things like emails and docs, or pull numbers for spreadsheets based on, say, an email conversation, meeting notes or separate sources in Drive. All it takes is a single prompt.
Google is especially proud of their agentic performance on Sheets, getting very close to the human expert benchmark on the SpreadsheetBench dataset.
The features are rolling out to all Ultra and Pro subscribers globally today, but is only available in English. Google is looking to bring on «more languages soon.»
Read more: Google’s announcement, launch thread. Writeups on 9to5Google and TechCrunch.
