Google Search is becoming even more of a showpiece for its AI ambitions. Today at Google I/O 2026, the company announced that Search has been upgraded to the Gemini 3.5 Flash model, which it says offers faster inferencing, smarter results and the ability to process different types of media. As a result, Google is also launching a new Intelligent Search Box that can dynamically get larger to fit complex queries, as well as use videos, images, files and even Chrome tabs as inputs. None of this is a surprise, though. Over the past year, we've seen Google slowly upgrade the AI mode in Search -- now, the company is just making an AI a more essential part of searching the web. That's good news for users who like the more conversational capabilities of Google's AI, but it's even worse news for the people who are trying to maintain the simple purity of Google's original search engine.

Google's Circle to Search feature can tell you if an image was AI-generated Google's Circle to Search feature can tell you if an image was AI-generated The company is expanding SynthID to Chrome and Search. As Google introduces new models and tools for generating AI content, it's also making it a little bit easier for people to answer the question was this created with AI? The company is expanding its AI detection system SynthID so features like Circle to Search and Lens will be able to identify AI-generated and AI-edited images. SynthID is Google's homegrown watermarking system that appends invisible metadata to content created or modified with its own AI tools. Last year at I/O, the company debuted a dedicated SynthID detector and later integrated the feature into the Gemini app .

Google's redesigned Gemini comes with a new interface and AI models Google's redesigned Gemini comes with a new interface and AI models The company is rolling out the redesigned chatbot on Android and iOS today. Google has announced several updates for the Gemini app at its I/O annual developer conference, including a design language called Neural Expressive that gives it a redesigned interface with new typography, more fluid animations and haptic feedback. The company has also integrated Gemini Live into the main Gemini experience. Currently, you'll have to tap the Live button in order to have spoken conversations with the AI, but the redesign will allow you to easily switch between typing and talking to the chatbot. Google is also introducing regional dialects for Gemini and designing its responses with imagery, graphics and even narrated videos, so it doesn't respond with walls of texts.

Google's Gemini Spark is an agentic AI assistant Google's Gemini Spark is an agentic AI assistant The AI agent is rolling out to testers this week. Google has announced a 24/7 personal AI agent called Gemini Spark at this year's I/O developer conference. The company says Spark transforms Gemini from a standard AI assistant to an active partner that actually perform tasks for you. Spark is powered by Gemini 3.5 and is deeply integrated with Google Workspace apps, including Gmail, Docs and Slides. You can teach it to perform various tasks, such as creating a list of critical deadlines in your Gmail and sending it to you, or writing up a summary of ongoing updates in lengthy email threads.

Google's Gemini Omni can generate'anything from any input,' starting with video Google's Gemini Omni can generate'anything from any input,' starting with video Google didn't forget AI creators in its latest round of Gemini announcements. Google didn't forget AI creators in its latest round of Gemini announcements as part of Google I/O . The company just officially revealed Gemini Omni, a new model that can create anything from any input -- starting with video, according to Google. The first model called Gemini Omni Flash is rolling out today to the Gemini app, Google Flow and YouTube Shorts. Google called Gemini Omni the next step up from Nano Banana and, presumably, its current video generator, Veo 3.1 .

Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash rivals'large flagship models' for coding and agentic tasks Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash rivals'large flagship models' for coding and agentic tasks It can complete tasks in a fraction of the time of other frontier models, Google claims. Google has unveiled Gemini 3.5, starting with the Gemini 3.5 Flash model that promises to outperform Gemini 3.1 Pro in real-world agentic and coding tasks. Announced at Google I/O 2026, this will be Google's default AI model (not to be confused with Flash-Lite), designed to deliver better speed than the current Gemini Pro models at a more affordable price. The tradeoff is lower performance than the 3.5 Pro model (coming next month) in tasks that require deep reasoning and high-context understanding. However, Google has reduced the compromise between the Pro and Flash models, saying Gemini 3.5 Flash delivers intelligence that rivals large flagship models on multiple dimensions.

Play Games Sidekick is also getting a wider rollout. This year's Google I/O has introduced a pile of updates for the Google Play storefront. Most of the new features are developer-focused as usual, but there are a couple standout changes to the way that regular Android users will interact with the store. We knew that AI would be a big factor in Google's upcoming plans, with Gemini Intelligence announced during the Android Show: I/O Edition, and of course there's more artificial intelligence to be had. Google Play is rolling out a new AI-powered feature called Ask Play.

Google's always-running, data-hungry AI agent is designed to spend your money and send your emails. Gemini Spark is Google's take on a steroided-out assistant agent that knows everything about you, announced as part of the company's updates to its Gemini chatbot app at this year's I/O developer conference . Software companies have been talking up AI agents for some time now, but I wasn't impressed until I tried Anthropic's Claude Cowork in January. I sat back as the bot organized the scattered screenshots littering my desktop into labeled folders without a single click, and felt convinced that this might be a turning point for how people interact with their computers. Many other early adopters in San Francisco experienced similar moments when they set up the mega-viral OpenClaw bot earlier this year, not just to help complete a few tasks but to run their whole online lives.

Instead of clicking on a bunch of random website links, I was reading an AI summary positioned at the top of my search results and sometimes clicking through to double-check the accuracy of the output. The next evolution of Search that Google is building asks for even less active participation from users. You're really the most involved at the start of the journey, and that's it. You tell the agents what you want to know, and they do the clicking and even calling on your behalf. Rather than you going off on some online adventure, it's the agent that's hoovering up anything it can find and bouncing between different sites.

The CEO of Google DeepMind tells WIRED that companies should use the productivity gains of AI to do more, not lay people off. Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, is keen to talk about the coding skills of his company's newest model, Gemini 3.5 Flash. The model has been trained to perform complex agentic coding tasks: translate large code bases from one language to another; find and fix bugs lurking deep in knotty code; and even write entire operating systems from scratch. Hassabis does not, however, think this spells doom for software developers. "I have no idea why people are going around talking with certainty about that," Hassabis tells WIRED ahead of the new model reveal at today's Google's I/O event .