Tag: google

Google launches Nano Banana 2 with Pro-level reasoning at Flash speeds

Prompt: «A brightly colored image of Museum Clos Lucé in the style of synthetic cubism.» (Picture: Google)
Rolling out across the entire Gemini landscape today, the new image generator offers «advanced world knowledge» powered by Gemini 3.

That should make it able to use web searches and other images in order to understand and reason its way into better pictures.

Like with Nano Banana Pro, you could create diagrams from notes, make infographics from text, and «generate data visualizations,» only a whole lot faster — and cheaper.

It should also be better at subject consistency, more precise in following instructions and can create high fidelity images at up to 4K resolutions.

It instantly leapt to the top of LMArena’s (now just arena.ai) text-to-image leaderboard.

Read more: Google’s presentation. Writeups on 9to5Google, Ars Technica, and TechCrunch.

Google brings Gemini automation to third-party apps on Android

Just three apps will be available on Gemini automation, but Google says they are just getting started. (Picture: Google)
Gemini on Android will soon be able to order up food and rides from Uber, DoordDsh, and Grubhub for you, launching yesterday at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event.

That means you can «order a ride home» or «order my last meal,» and let Gemini control your Uber app in the background just like any human would. But when it comes to tapping the «buy»-button, it will need your attention.

The beta is only available in the USA and Korea, arriving in March on the latest phones from Samsung and Google, specifically the S26 and Pixel 10.

It works within a «virtual window» on the phone, and does not have access to anything else, 9to5Google writes.

— This beta feature will be initially available for select apps in the food, grocery and rideshare categories, Google says.

Gemini already has automation features for standard Google apps, like Gmail and Calendar.

Read more: Google’s blog, writeups on 9to5Google, The Verge and TechCrunch.

Google’s next data center in Minnesota will have the world’s largest battery

Google’s energy in Minnesota won’t lead to higher electricity costs for consumers, they say. (Picture: Google)
The data center in Pine Island will have 1.9 gigawatts of capacity, sourced from new wind and solar power from Xcel Energy.

This will then be attached to a 300 megawatt iron-air battery from Form Energy, ensuring continuous service to operations.

That will be the world’s largest commercially deployed battery, and can provide power to the data center for a whopping 100 hours, TechCrunch notes.

As part of their buildout, Google is announcing that they will pay for their electricity in full, and will also invest $50 million in Xcel Energy’s green energy program to place batteries across their grid.

— Google’s partnership with Xcel Energy reimagines how data centers can be served, Google writes.

Read more: Google’s announcement, Xcel’s presser, CNBC and TechCrunch.

Google announces Gemini 3.1 Pro: «a step forward in reasoning»

Expect more, rapid one-point releases from the frontier labs going ahead. (Picture: Google)
The new model is a «smarter, more capable baseline for complex problem-solving,» Google says.

It’s the new leader on the benchmarks, almost solving ARC-AGI with 98% and hitting 77% on ARC-AGI 2, the problem solver benchmark, more than doubling Gemini 3’s results.

It also scores 44.4% on Humanity’s Last Exam, which is the best yet and definitly makes it the new state-of-the art.

Gemini 3 Pro was only released last November, so this new point-release might well signal where frontier labs are heading next — incremental updates every few months rather than full blown giant steps every six months to a year.

Gemini 3.1 Pro is rolling out today «in preview» to Pro and Ultra plans, and it’s also in NotebookLM for those users. Developers should also get a taste soon. Pricing is the same as Gemini 3 Pro.

Read more: Google’s announcement, launch thread. See also 9to5Google, Ars Technica and TechCrunch. Discussion on r/Singularity.

Google launches custom music generation in Gemini with Lyria 3 model

Gemini can now make you thirty seconds of music based on prompts or photos, and will even use Nano Banana for custom art for it.

They say the feature is for fun and games, and very specific music requests that can be personal, like making a tune about your mum’s home cooked plantains.

Continue reading “Google launches custom music generation in Gemini with Lyria 3 model”

Alphabet set to double AI spending as Google owner hits record revenue

AI spending increases twofold at Alphabet this year. (Picture: generated)
The Google owner is set to join Amazon and Meta in spending more than $100 billion on AI this year, as its 2025 revenue tops $400 billion.

The headline capex number of $175 to $185 billion is in comparison to a spend of $91 billion in 2025, as their cloud VP, Amin Vahdat, has said they need to double capacity every six months.

In 2026, Meta will spend $135 billion, Microsoft expects a decrease from $37 billion last quarter, and Amazon clocks in at $146 billion, according to CNBC.

Combined, Big Tech looks set to cross $500 billion in AI spending this year, Reuters reports.

As for Google’s AI push, it seems on the rise, having sold 8 million enterprise subscriptions in 2025 and now reaching 750 million monthly active users, up from 650 million last quarter.

Read more: Alphabet’s numbers, writeups at CNBC, Reuters, TechCrunch.

Gemini on Chrome gets massive update

Gemini in Chrome goes big on agentic browsing. (Picture: Google)
Pro and Ultra users on Chrome in the USA are getting a huge update today, on everything from shopping to Personal Intelligence.

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.

The EU wants equal access for other AI models on Google’s Android

The EU wants other AI labs to have the same hooks in Android that Gemini has. (Picture: generated)
— The aim is to ensure that third-party providers have an equal opportunity to innovate and compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape on smart mobile devices, their statement says, per Engadget.

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.

Google brings AI Plus-subscription to 35 countries, including the USA

Google is countering ChatGPT Go’s debut in the USA with a competitive offering. (Picture: Google)
Google is matching ChatGPT Go, which entered the USA two weeks ago.

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.

DeepMind helps create animated movie headed for Sundance

In what is likely the first AI movie at Sundance, «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was made with the creatives first. (Picture: Google)
The animated movie «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was created by Pixar alumni Connie He, a group of animation veterans — and a team of researchers at DeepMind.

The movie was an experiment to see how AI tools could better help moviemakers, and ended up needing specialized tools.

Connie He provided the storyboard, the character design, the abstract background paintings, but a 45-person team at DeepMind soon realized that the off-the-shelf-versions of their software wasn’t good enough for this purpose.

They then fine-tuned the Veo and Imagen models to their artwork, and made a video-to-video model where the artists could sketch a scene for guidance and have the model add details and artwork, before upscaling it to 4K using Veo.

For precise detail, they also developed a tool that would let the artists fix detail in specific regions of an animation, without influencing the broader scene.

The movie will debut at the Sundance Institute’s Story Forum, a panel that focuses on tools and technologies in support of storytelling.

Read more: Google’s blog details the process, Announcement thread.

Gemini teams with The Princeton Review for realistic, practice SAT tests

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”

Google introduces «Me Meme» to put yourself in a meme in Photos

Meme culture peaked in 2012, and now Google are putting out a meme function for photos. (Picture: reddit, Shadow_Strike99)
Google Photos has a new feature where you can take any one of your photos and turn them into a meme.

The feature works best with well-lit portraits, and uses Nano Bana to create «funny, personalized images.»

All you need is to select a template (which are already available in the app), choose a photo and click on Me Meme, available through the Create button. You can then share it widely right from the app.

The feature launched just before the weekend, and so far it doesn’t seem to have the viral uptake Google might have hoped for.

Memes are so 2012, after all.

Read more: Google’s announcement, TechCrunch, Mashable.

Google DeepMind makes 4-dimensional videos from 2D inputs

D4RT, Dynamic 4D Reconstruction and Tracking, can calculate any pixel for 3D worlds in an instant. (Picture: Google).
Google’s new D4RT is a breakthrough in transcoding two dimensional videos from a camera or file, and turning them into 4D content.

This means they can create 3D worlds from a 2D camera, and it can also calculate the fourth dimension, which is time and movement.

— Anytime we look at the world, we perform an extraordinary feat of memory and prediction. We see and understand things as they are at a given moment in time, as they were a moment ago, and how they are going to be in the moment to follow, Google writes.

Enabling this will be especially useful for training robots, who need spatial real-time awareness about the world around it, and might not have fancy 3D cameras.

The technology is 18x to 300x faster than previous state of the art models, Google says — making the translations function in real-time.

The use case for the technology in addition to robotics is making 3D-models for augmented reality in smart glasses, and in building world models — which is the real advantage on the path to creating world-awareness for Artificial General Intelligence.

Read more: Google’s blog, Launch thread, research paper.

Google’s Veo 3.1 hits 179 million Workspace users

Just one of many creative uses of Veo3.1. Jelllyfish in the backseat of a car.
Announced late last week, Google Flow is coming to Workspace.

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.