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 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.

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 .

PCWorld reports that Google's new Docs Live feature uses Gemini AI to transform verbal "brain dumps" into formatted documents, pulling information from Drive, Gmail, and other Google services. This productivity enhancement aims to reduce cognitive load for mentally fatigued users by enabling conversational document creation and automatic task generation in Google Keep. The advanced AI features, including Gmail's new AI Inbox for enhanced search and email drafting, will require Google AI Pro or Ultra subscriptions starting this summer. We've all been in this situation: You know what you want to say, but you're too mentally exhausted, distracted, or confused to actually say it. Google's new conversational AI, Docs Live, wants to help. The metaphor Google is using here is a "brain dump," and Google is applying this technique to Docs, Gmail, and Google Keep. Google's trying to offload more of the "thinking" away from you and on to Google apps, using what it knows about you -- naturally!

Google is transforming its search engine into an AI-powered assistant called Spark, featuring conversational interactions and a personalized'daily brief' for task management. PCWorld reports the company is expanding mobile search capabilities to handle complex queries using text, images, and video while integrating restaurant reservations and payments. This evolution blurs the line between traditional search and AI assistance, keeping users within Google's ecosystem through proactive monitoring and personalized results.

Microsoft is officially discontinuing SMS verification for personal account logins, pushing users toward more secure passkey authentication methods. PCWorld reports that SMS-based authentication represents a major fraud risk, prompting Microsoft's aggressive transition to biometric and PIN-based passkeys. Users should switch to passkeys soon, which use device-stored keys and biometric data for enhanced two-factor authentication security. For a while now, it's been possible to authenticate your Microsoft account logins by receiving a six-digit code via text message. Windows Latest now reports that SMS verification will be phased out shortly.

PCWorld reports that Microsoft's May security update KB5089549 is failing to install on some Windows 11 devices running versions 25H2 and 24H2. The installation fails at 35-36% completion with error code 0x800f0922, caused by insufficient free space on the EFI System Partition. Microsoft offers temporary workarounds including Known Issue Rollback or registry tweaks while developing a permanent fix for future release. Microsoft's May security update KB5089549 is failing to install on some Windows 11 machines.