With Google I/O 2026 underway and day one almost in the books, there’s a lot of cool new tech and features that Google has brought to the table. Some of it is being made available today, while other stuff won’t be launching until later in the year. But all of it is likely to spark some excitement with a large group of the general public. Like Samsung’s Gemini-powered smart glasses. Google also announced the next big update for Wear OS, and new versions of Gemini that will power dozens of new features across devices.
If you didn’t watch the keynote speech, you can do that by going to this post to check out the nearly two-hour long talk. If you don’t feel like watching a long speech, you can catch up on everything you missed with this post, as it covers all the big announcements from Google I/O 2026’s first day. This is all the cool new tech and features you’ll want to be using this year and beyond.
Samsung announces the launch date for its AI smart glasses
The biggest announcement of the day has to be Samsung’s announcement of the launch date for its AI-powered smart glasses, which are officially coming this Fall. These are powered by Google Gemini and Samsung partnered with Google to make these glasses, which Samsung is calling intelligent eyewear. Google also partnered with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to produce the frames. So Google and Samsung handled the tech, while Warby Parker and Gentle Monster did the frames. This helps them add a little style to the product. Google also confirmed last year that it would be partnering with other brands that make eyewear to come out with new frame styles, so we should see more stuff coming in the future.
Gemini 3.5 is here with loads of new features
The next big announcement was the arrival of Gemini 3.5, Google’s new family of AI models that spans Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Pro, and more. This new set of AI models is jam-packed with new features that will be available to users starting from today, though not everything is rolling out immediately. Some of it is also not rolling out to everyone initially. For example, Gemini Spark is in testing now with Google’s trusted testers, and it’s rolling out soon to subscribers of Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra. Gemini 3.5 Flash on the other hand, is available starting today for everyone, and it already appears to be live.
One of the best parts of Gemini 3.5 Flash is of course the Gemini Spark feature, which essentially turns Gemini to a full-on personal agent for you to handle your tasks. So you’ll want to be on the lookout for that to arrive when it starts being made available to more people.
Gemini Omni is Google’s powerful new creation tool
Ever since Google transitioned to an AI-first company, it’s been steadily rolling out new and more advanced features and tools for users and developers. As well as creators. At first there were things like Gemini Nano Banana and Google Veo, powered by AI and used for generating images and video content. Now Google is announcing Gemini Omni, another new model used for creation. What sets Gemini Omni apart is that Google claims it can be used to create anything with any input. With the ability to combine images, videos, and text to generate something. You can then also further refine and edit the creation through the same conversation you already started with Gemini Omni to generate the content.
Wear OS 7 is here with even more big upgrades
If you’re using a Pixel Watch 4 or another model from the series, or a current Galaxy Watch model, then this announcement was for you. Google has officially unveiled Wear OS 7, and it’s bringing in some rather big upgrades that are bound to add some quality-of-life to the platform for many users. One of those features is Wear Widgets. These are basically replacing Google’s fullscreen Tiles, which have been a staple of Wear OS for the last few generations. Wear Widgets will also not take up the entire watch screen, and will instead be set up on a 2×1 or 2×2 grid so you can lump them up together. Additionally, Google is also making it possible to have the watch do automated tasks for you, such as placing a Door Dash order.
Google unfortunately doesn’t confirm when this is launching. So it could be a few months away or it might not launch until the late part of this year. Either way, you’re going to want to look out for this update if you use a Wear OS watch.
Google Search’s Universal Cart will let you shop across merchants
So you can technically shop across merchants right now just by going to multiple online stores for your favorite brands. However, the Universal Cart, a new feature that Google announced for Search coming later this year, will let you shop those different merchants and throw everything in the “universal shopping cart.” This feature was built on the Google Wallet platform too, so you once you’re ready to make your purchases, you can pay for everything using the Universal Cart feature. It gets even better though. It also understands reasoning. Say you throw something in your cart that isn’t compatible with another item that’s already in there. The cart will alert you to this and make suggestions for alternatives. Pretty neat, right?
The Google Search bar is now way more powerful thanks to agentic AI infusion
Google is saying this is the biggest upgrade to Search in the past 25 years, and it’s the addition of agentic AI technology and features directly accessible from the Search bar. This includes a new dynamically expanding input box that gives you room to type out what your requests are. What’s more is that the Search bar isn’t just for asking questions anymore. Google says the new Search bar is even capable of writing custom code for you right in the moment. This should definitely help speed things up for developers when ever second counts.
You can now Ask YouTube to find content using questions and follow up results with full sentences
Ask YouTube is the new AI-infused feature from Google that will sort of let you have a Gemini conversation with the media sharing platform. You can open the YouTube search bar and if you’re looking for a piece of content to watch, you can simply ask YouTube to find you the content you’re seeking. Based on the results, you can then follow up those findings with full sentences. Say the video you’re looking for wasn’t in the results, or what YouTube found for you just wasn’t quite what you wanted but it’s close. You can follow up with a full sentence that better describes the videos you’re looking for to narrow things down.
Google AI Ultra gets a new $100 price package, and Gemini Spark is here to handle your tasks for you
We mentioned Gemini Spark earlier briefly as a new personal assistant that will be available within the Gemini app using Gemini 3.5 Flash. While it’s currently in testing with trusted testers, it is rolling out to more users in beta very soon. You’ll get Gemini Spark access with Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra, the latter of which is getting a new $100 price package for a monthly subscription cost. To be clear, this isn’t replacing the old Google AI Ultra plan that you can already access. This is a new tier of pricing that trims some of the fat so-to-speak by removing some features for people who want most of what the Ultra plan has to offer, but don’t need all of it.
You can now have a conversation with Google Docs
Google is adding a lot of new AI power to Workspace products like Google Docs and Google Drive. If you use either of these or both as part of your daily routine, you’re probably going to love these updates. For instance, you can start a conversation with Gemini in Google Drive and just give it a bunch of random thoughts that you have, and it can cleanly organize them into bulleted lists to make things look nicer.
Google boosts Google Flow with more AI superpowers
Today also saw a list of upgrades coming to Google Flow. This includes new video and music editing tools, Gemini Omni Flash integration, and even a new agent that can batch edit content for you. These new tools will definitely help keep the flow going when you’re in the groove of whatever projects you’re working on. And with Gemini Omni, Google is now making it possible for people to make music videos with its entire stack of AI products.
Android Halo will help you keep track of AI agent task progress
With all of the AI agents being made available and put at your fingertips, you’ll be wanting a better way to keep an eye on how much progress the agent is making on the tasks you give it. Android Halo is going to be that way of keeping track of progress. It’ll essentially push a visible, glanceable alert at the top of your phone screen that lets you peek at the progress whenever you want. It’s persistent as well and you can check it from any screen so you don’t have to stop what you’re doing.
Loads of AI tools are being made available for Google Cloud, Workspace, and more
Google Workspace and Google Cloud customers might be getting the most upgrades out of Google I/O this year. A lot of this year’s show was about AI but that’s really just the overarching theme of the event. And that theme is made up of tons of little tiny cogs parts that put together the whole machine and keep it running. Those little cogs and parts are all of the AI features that are being integrated with Google’s other products, like Gemini 3.5 Flash being made available in the Gemini app on May 19, or Google Workspace customers getting access to AI-powered features to help them organize and create things to use in day-to-day projects.
Even Google Street View is getting AI integration now
Gemini is already available in several apps that Google offers, and so are other AI tools, so why wouldn’t Google take the opportunity to roll up some Google Genie AI features into Street View? It would, it definitely would. And it did. Today at Google I/O 2026, Google showed off a demo of what this looks like, and it creates some intricate dynamic environments based on Street View images after you feed Genie a prompt on what you want to see. Google says this is initially limited to US locations but it should be expanding to other regions in the near future.
Google AI Studio now has a mobile app and Antigravity 2.0 can help you code
If you need a little help coding, then you’re going to want to check out Antigravity 2.0, as this will be the new standard for your Android coding hub that can help with everything from automation to general coding tasks. Google is also launching a Google AI Studio mobile app to make things more convenient for its users to get things done on the go. Now you won’t have to necessarily lug around a laptop to do what you need.
Google TV gets new pointer controls and Gemini makes discovering apps easier
Earlier this year Google started integrating Gemini into Google TV to make discovering apps for the platform more convenient. It’s now working more closely with developers to make it possible for their apps to be surfaced by those Gemini searches. Google TV is also now getting pointer control support. You’ll need a remote that offers motion controls to use it as a pointer, but this should make for much easier navigation when you’re scrolling through content looking for something to watch.
SynthID is being added to more stuff so it’s easier to spot AI-generated content
The big issue some people have with AI-generated content is that it’s tough to tell when something is actually generated with AI. It’s actually quite a huge problem and if you spend any amount of time online either in forums, on Twitter, or on Reddit, you’ll start to notice that there are tons of people who simply can’t tell if something is made with AI or not. There are even entire subreddits dedicated to figuring out if something was made with AI.
Well, Google wants to make it easier to identify these types of AI-generated content. So it’s weaving SynthID into more things to make it possible. This includes the content that you will be able to generate with its newly announce Gemini Omni model.
Xreal’s Project Aura glasses are launching later this year
Xreal has confirmed that its Aura smart glasses will ship before the end of 2026, which means this will be another pair of smart glasses that use Google’s Android XR platform that will be available this year. The other pair is Google and Samsung’s intelligent eyewear using frames designed by Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Xreal says its Aura glasses will have deep integration with Gemini and Google apps, so you should be able to use these in quite a few ways.
Google AI Studio can basically make your app for you
The days where you needed to know complex coding and have design skills seem to be coming to an end, as Google’s continued launch of different AI models and AI tools are making it possible to do things that couldn’t be done before. For example, it’s now possible for Google AI Studio to build an app based on a prompt you give it. In theory, you could sit down, right a simple or very thorough and complex prompt, feed it into Google AI Studio, and it would eventually spit out a fully built app. If tat sounds out there to you, you’re probably not alone. Because there are surely many people who never thought this would be possible.
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