Tootfinder

Google makes Gemini 3 Flash the default model in Gemini app and Search's AI mode; it scored 33.7% without tool use on Humanity's Last Exam vs. GPT-5.2's 34.5% (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/goog

Google launches Gemini 3 Flash, makes it the default model in the Gemini app | TechCrunch
Google is making Gemini 3 Flash the default model in the Gemini app and oAI model for Search

Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages (The Keyword)
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/lyria-3/

A new way to express yourself: Gemini can now create music
Lyria 3 is now available in the Gemini app. Create custom, high-quality 30-second tracks from text and images.

A damning new study could put AI companies on the defensive.
In it, Stanford and Yale researchers found compelling evidence that AI models are actually copying all that data,
not “learning” from it.
Specifically, four prominent LLMs
— OpenAI’s GPT-4.1, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, xAI’s Grok 3, and Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet
— happily reproduced lengthy excerpts from popular
— and protected
— works, with a stunning degree of accuracy.
They fou…

Researchers Just Found Something That Could Shake the AI Industry to Its Core
Researchers found compelling evidence that AI models are actually copying copyrighted data, not "learning" from it.

"To be very clear, Gemini 3 isn’t perfect, and it still needs a manager who can guide and check it. But it suggests that “human in the loop” is evolving from “human who fixes AI mistakes” to “human who directs AI work.” And that may be the biggest change since the release of ChatGPT."

Three Years from GPT-3 to Gemini 3
From chatbots to agents

Google rolls out Lyria 3, a generative music model that can make 30-second tracks with Nano Banana cover art, in beta in the Gemini app in eight languages (The Keyword)
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/lyria-3/

A new way to express yourself: Gemini can now create music
Lyria 3 is now available in the Gemini app. Create custom, high-quality 30-second tracks from text and images.

We’ve chosen the paper for @… next week (February 23rd): “Hallucinating with AI: AI Psychosis as Distributed Delusions” by Lucy Osler.
(Is it this Lucy Osler: @…? We think so!)
We’ll have copies to give out tonight (6 PM, Vi…

Google brings its vibe coding tool Opal to Gemini on the web, letting users create their own custom apps called Gems; the mini apps can be reused later (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/googles-vibe-coding-tool-opal-comes-to-gemini/

Google's vibe-coding tool Opal comes to Gemini | TechCrunch
The company on Wednesday said it is integrating the tool, which lets you build AI-powered mini apps, inside the Gemini web app, allowing users to create their own custom apps.

Google’s vibe-coding tool, Opal,
is making its way to Gemini.
The company on Wednesday said it is integrating the tool,
which lets you build AI-powered mini apps,
inside the Gemini web app,
allowing users to create their own custom apps,
which Google calls Gems.
Introduced in 2024,
Gems are customized versions of Gemini designed for specific tasks or scenarios.
For instance, some of Google’s pre-made Gems include
a learning coach,…

Quickstart  |  Opal  |  Google for Developers

For compatibility with future BCIs for restoring vision, The vOICe web app now shows its hi-res color preview in AI compatibility mode at ~10 fps, for BCI software to capture frames at up to 10 fps (like Google Gemini Live and ChatGPT screen sharing do) https://www.seeingwithsound.com/webvoice/w

#AI mastery: I have taught #Gemini some #uwu.

Apple adds support for third-party voice-based conversational apps in CarPlay starting with iOS 26.4, letting CarPlay users access apps like AI chatbots (Juli Clover/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/18/ios-26-4-carplay-support/

iOS 26.4 Brings CarPlay Support for ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini
With iOS 26.4, CarPlay users will be able to use third-party chatbots with CarPlay. AI services like Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT will be accessible...

AI / LLM sycophancy as a liability:
'A 2025 study by Fanous et al. tested GPT-4o, Claude Sonnet, and Gemini 1.5 Pro across math and medical domains. The results: these systems changed their answers nearly 60% of the time when challenged by users'
https://

Google launches CC, an experimental AI assistant that delivers a personalized daily "Your Day Ahead" briefing email based on users' emails and calendar (Robert Hart/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/845280/google-cc-morning-briefing-gemini…

Google wants its AI assistant CC to replace your morning scroll
Google’s AI agent CC is similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pulse, delivering a personalized morning briefing based on your Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive.

To maintain Apple’s privacy pledge, the Gemini-based AI will run directly on Apple devices or its private cloud system, which is powered by Apple’s own server chips, rather than running on Google’s servers. Google put significant engineering effort into getting a version of Gemini working on Apple’s servers, according to a person familiar with the partnership talks.

> Google calls the illicit activity "model extraction" and considers it intellectual property theft, which is a somewhat loaded position, given that Google's LLM was built from materials scraped from the Internet without permission.
https://

Attackers prompted Gemini over 100,000 times while trying to clone it, Google says
Distillation technique lets copycats mimic Gemini at a fraction of the development cost.

KI-Update: Social Media für KI, Wie nah ist AGI?, Gemini für Fußgänger, Q.AI
Das "KI-Update" liefert werktäglich eine Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten KI-Entwicklungen.
https://www.

Don't miss today's packed Metacurity for the most critical infosec developments you should know, including
--US drops China Telecom, TP-Link router, and other data security bans before trade talks,
--Crypto-funded transactions for human trafficking soared in 2025,
--Prosecutors confirm former defense contractor exec stole and sold spy tools,
--APT hackers use Gemini AI to support all stages of an attack,
--Apple fixes zero-day exploit in sophisticated att…

US drops China Telecom, TP-Link router, and other data security bans before trade talks
Crypto-funded transactions for human trafficking soared in 2025, Prosecutors confirm former defense contractor exec stole and sold spy tools, APT hackers use Gemini AI to support all stages of an attack, Apple fixes zero day exploited in sophisticated attack, much more

One thing I like to do is to compare the articles in different Wikipedia language editions about the same topic (I know, I'm a nerd). My daughter was watching me, and then she suggested a topic and that we should ask an AI to help.
She suggested YouTuber Technoblade, whose article is available in 35 language editions of Wikipedia, and I chose Gemini since I got a free subscription for its paid-tier service.
Since all are tired of AI dialogs, it is radically edited. Full dialo…

Apple bestätigt: Google Gemini wird neue Siri! Was das bedeutet
#Apple

Apple bestätigt: Google Gemini wird neue Siri! Was das bedeutet
Jetzt ist es offiziell: Google liefert mit Gemini den Unterbau für Apples künftige Siri-KI. Was das bedeutet, ob Eure Daten weiterhin sicher sind und die Gründe. #Apple #Google #AI Kapitelmarken: 00:00 Intro: Apple nutzt Google Gemini für Siri 00:50 Apples offizielle Bestätigung der Partnerschaft 01:50 Siris Niedergang: Vom Pionier zum Problemfall 03:00 Die gescheiterten Versprechen von 2024 04:05 Details zum Gemini-Deal und den Kosten 05:15 Unterschied zu ChatGPT-Integration 06:45 Date…

Nation-state hackers ramping up use of Gemini for target reconnaissance, malware coding, Google says https://therecord.media/nation-state-hackers-using-gemini-for-malicious-campaigns

Yeah, um - that's a swing and a miss there. Gemini.
#AI #SwingAndAMiss #Gemini

Hachette and Cengage file to join an existing copyright infringement lawsuit against Google in which authors say Google used their books to train its Gemini LLM (Blake Brittain/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/p

Google launches Gemini AI features in Chrome for iPhone and iPad, after debuting on desktop and Android earlier in 2025, starting in the US in English (Steve Dent/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-gemini-ai-comes-to-chrome-on-iphone…

Google's Gemini AI comes to Chrome on iPhone and iPad
After rolling it out on desktop and Android earlier in 2025, Google is finally bringing its built-in Gemini AI experience to iPhone and iPad.

I followed a link to a PDF file that was stored in Google Drive and got assaulted with options to let Gemini create an outline, list the main points, create an audio summary, or answer questions.
I just want to download a PDF file. That's it.
#noAI #ai

Google schedules I/O 2026 for May 19 to 20 in Mountain View, teasing the "latest AI breakthroughs and updates" in Gemini, Android, and more (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2026/02/17/google-io-2026-date/

Google I/O 2026 set for May 19-20
Following the interactive puzzle this morning, Google has announced that I/O 2026 is taking place May 19-20...

Tricks for using Google Gemini Live AI scene description in combination with The vOICe visual-to-auditory sensory substitution for the blind #blind

Claude is absolutely "king" of AI at the moment, i think however Gemini 3 Flash is good enough for most people and a lot cheaper. I have the feeling ChatGPT will lose this race (just guessing).
#AI #Claude #Anthropic

Google updates Gemini 3 Deep Think to better solve modern science, research, and engineering challenges and expands it via the Gemini API to some researchers (The Keyword)
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gem…

Gemini 3 Deep Think: Advancing science, research and engineering
We’re releasing a major upgrade to Gemini 3 Deep Think, our specialized reasoning mode.

Or one could use LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice and not be dependent on some distant service provider.
Online office suites confuse me. It’s unclear what *modern* problem they address. Sharing files is a solved problem. Common data formats exist. https://mastodon.social/@DevOpsPink/11

Tatiana Mikhaleva (@DevOpsPink@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image Proton rolled out Proton Sheets - a spreadsheet Google can’t peek into. Gemini: “Show me your data?” You: “No.” Sheets: also no, but in Swiss.🇨🇭🔐 End-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge, even file names get the Swiss-bank treatment. You open a spreadsheet - Big Tech immediately cries. Somewhere in California, an AI whispers: “But… my training data…” Privacy 1 : 0 AI https://proton.me/blog/sheets-proton-drive #Proton #Privacy #Encryption #CyberSe…

Sources: Google has told advertising clients that it plans to bring ads to Gemini in 2026, separate from ads in AI Mode (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/google-gemini-ads-2026/

EXCLUSIVE: Google Tells Advertisers It’ll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026
The discussions mark the first time advertisers have heard directly from Google about monetizing its Gemini AI chatbot

Source details how Apple's Gemini deal works: new Siri features launching in spring and at WWDC, Apple can finetune Gemini, no Google branding, and more (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-using-gemini-give-chatgpt-like-ans…

How Apple is Using Gemini to Give ChatGPT-Like Answers
In another AI win for Google lately, Apple announced on Monday that it will use Google’s Gemini models to power its artificial intelligence features, including an upcoming updated version of its Siri voice assistant.With Gemini powering its answers, Siri will have the ability to answer factual ...

Smart fridge, smart stove, smart dishwasher, smart washer/dryer or other household appliances... HELL NO! I don't want or need internet connected appliances. If those servers goes offline, if an 'upgrade' glitches or I say no to an update what happens to the basic functionality? What data are they capturing and selling?
h…

The Dutch Data Protection Authority, the national privacy watchdog, told Het Financieele Dagblad that it has counted dozens of such AI-related data breach reports so far this year.
https://nltimes.nl/2025/12/30/dutch-privacy-watchdog-warns-rising-ai-ch…

Dutch privacy watchdog warns of rising AI chatbot data leaks
The number of reported data breaches linked to workplace use of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini is rising sharply in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, following a recent leak involving the municipality of Eindhoven.

Sources: Google has told advertisers that it plans to bring ads to Gemini in 2026; Google's VP of Global Ads says there are no plans for ads in the Gemini app (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/google-gemini-ads-2026/

EXCLUSIVE: Google Tells Advertisers It’ll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026
The discussions mark the first time advertisers have heard directly from Google about monetizing its Gemini AI chatbot

Apple announces a multi-year deal to use Google's Gemini to power new Siri features later in 2026, saying Google's tech "provides the most capable foundation" (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/apple-google-ai-siri-gemini.html

Apple picks Google's Gemini to run AI-powered Siri coming this year
Google's market value surpassed Apple for the first time since 2019 last week and topped $4 trillion on the news.

Interesting how Poetiq (company) can improve on the performance of the standard Gemini 3.0 Pro model by adding refinements and tricks. It leads to a 9% improvement on the ARC-AGI-2 Benchmark.
https://poetiq.ai/posts/arcagi_verified/

Poetiq Shatters ARC-AGI-2 State of the Art at Half the Cost
We are proud to confirm that our system has officially outperformed existing methods, establishing a new state-of-the-art by a significant margin.

Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers – Retraction Watch https://retractionwatch.com/2026/01/30/guest-post-ai-chatgpt-generated-paper-pregnancy-math/

Guest post: Forget pickles and ice cream. I published a fake paper on pregnancy cravings for prime numbers
Image generated by Google Gemini I had grown weary of the constant stream and abuse of spam invitations to submit manuscripts to journals and to attend fake conferences on the other side of the wor…

I am not going to sit here and lie to you that I wrote this bash script all by myself. Yeah, I had it already (mostly), but got bored of reading man pages and borrowing from other people's scripts on the Internet and instead had THE best chat with Gemini ever, in which we both learned from our mistakes 😁
PS The sick CachyOS logo was entirely Gemini's idea. Good job AI buddy 😎

Künstliche Intelligenz von Apple: Siri als echter Chatbot und KI zum Anpinnen
Einem Bericht zufolge soll Apples Sprachassistentin dank Gemini zum echten Chatbot werden. Ein weiteres Gerücht betrifft ein erstes AI-Wearable des Konzerns.

Google told advertisers that it is integrating direct shopping into Search's AI Mode and Gemini; users can now buy items from Etsy and Wayfair within Gemini (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Google says Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but also future Apple Intelligence features (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/12/google-gemini-future-apple-intelligence-features/

Google Says Gemini Partnership With Apple Will Go Beyond Siri Revamp
Google today announced that its AI platform Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple...

Grok is the most antisemitic chatbot according to the ADL (Mia Sato/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/868925/adl-ai-antisemitism-report-grok-chatgpt-gemini-claude-deepseek-llama-elon-musk
http://www.memeorandum.com/260128/p52#a260128p52

Zoom says its "federated AI" model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools (Xuedong Huang/Zoom)
https://www.zoom.com/en/blog/humanitys-last-exam-zoom-ai-breakthrough/

Zoom AI sets new state-of-the-art benchmark on Humanity's Last Exam
Federated innovation driving breakthrough results in complex AI testing

Trillions of dollars are being invested in AI, while end users and consumers scramble looking for articles such as "How to turn off AI tools like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and more" https://www.consumerreports.org/…

How to Turn Off AI Tools Like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and More
AI features are crowding into Google search, Gmail, iPhones, Windows laptops, and other products. If you're suffering from AI overload, these settings can help.

Google's TIG says Gemini has been inundated by "commercially motivated" actors who are trying to clone it, including one campaign that prompted it 100K times (Kevin Collier/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/google…

Google: Gemini hit with 100,000+ prompts in cloning attempt
Google says its flagship AI chatbot, Gemini, has been inundated by “commercially motivated” actors who are trying to clone the chatbot.

Researchers say GPT 4.1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3 can reproduce long excerpts from books they were trained on when strategically prompted (Alex Reisner/The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/ai-memorization-research/6…

AI's Memorization Crisis
Large language models don’t “learn”—they copy. And that could change everything for the tech industry.

Now using an app made in Google AI studio that let me quickly summarize my timeline, a list or a hashtag for a certain period. Using Gemini 3 Flash. A timesaver to quickly get an overview of what is happening on Mastodon. All possible because of Mastodons open API's.
#mastodon #API

Elon Musk says Apple and Google's Gemini deal "seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google given that [they] also have Android and Chrome" (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/12/elon-musk-reacts-to-gemini-siri/

Elon Musk Reacts to Apple and Google Teaming on Gemini-Powered Siri
Elon Musk today expressed concern about Apple and Google partnering on a more personalized version of Siri powered by Google's generative AI...

Survey of 1,458 US teens: 64% use AI chatbots, and 28% use them daily; 59% say they use ChatGPT, 23% Gemini, 20% Meta AI, 14% Copilot, and 9% Character.ai (Pew Research Center)
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social-media-and-ai-…

Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025
Roughly one-in-five U.S. teens say they are on TikTok and YouTube almost constantly. At the same time, 64% of teens say they use chatbots, including about three-in-ten who do so daily.

When i don't have time to read all the posts in a Mastodon list, i now use a Gemini App (made in Google AI Studio) to quickly make a summary and overview of the highlights, shared links etc.
Mastodon lists are a great way to organize your Mastodonfeed by the way.
#mastodonlists #AI

The Trump administration is planning to
👉use artificial intelligence to write federal transportation regulations,
according to U.S. Department of Transportation records
and interviews with six agency staffers.
The plan was presented to DOT staff last month at a demonstration of AI’s “potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings,”
agency attorney Daniel Cohen wrote to colleagues.
The demonstration, Cohen wrote, would showcase “exciting new AI to…

Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence
The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”

Sources: Google has told advertising clients that it plans to bring ads to Gemini in 2026, separate from ads in AI Mode (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/google-gemini-ads-2026/

EXCLUSIVE: Google Tells Advertisers It’ll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026
The discussions mark the first time advertisers have heard directly from Google about monetizing its Gemini AI chatbot

Sources: Google has told advertisers that it plans to bring ads to Gemini in 2026; Google's VP of Global Ads says there are no plans for ads in the Gemini app (Trishla Ostwal/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/google-gemini-ads-2026/

EXCLUSIVE: Google Tells Advertisers It’ll Bring Ads to Gemini in 2026
The discussions mark the first time advertisers have heard directly from Google about monetizing its Gemini AI chatbot

Source: ChatGPT has ~900M weekly active users; Sensor Tower: Gemini MAUs grew ~30% to 346M between August and November while ChatGPT's rose ~5% to 810M (Sri Muppidi/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/chatgpt-near…

ChatGPT Nears 900 Million Weekly Active Users But Gemini is Catching Up
The competition between AI chatbots has been heating up, with Google’s Gemini nipping at OpenAI’s heels. On Monday, I wrote about how Gemini’s share of weekly mobile app downloads increased in late November following the release of Gemini 3, according to data from research firm Sensor Tower, ...

Google says Gemini 3 Pro sets new vision AI benchmark records, including in complex visual reasoning, beating Claude Opus 4.5 and GPT-5.1 in some categories (Rohan Doshi/The Keyword)
https://blog.google/technology/developers/gemini-3-pro-vision/

Gemini 3 Pro: the frontier of vision AI
Build with Gemini 3 Pro, the best model in the world for multimodal capabilities.

Google rolls out Preferred Sources globally, letting users customize "top stories" in Search, and launches highlighted links from users' news subscriptions (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land)
https://searchengineland.com/google-ro

Google rolling out Preferred Sources globally and announces Spotlighting subscriptions
Spotlighting subscriptions are coming to Gemini first and then AI Mode and AI Overviews within Google Search.

Sometimes i have the feeling that AI results in Google Search are just a placeholder. Results are often awful and incomparable with using the paid version of Gemini 3 with the same query. Google is betting that models will improve and become cheaper so that they can offer a better experience in the future.
#AI #Search

Google told advertisers that it is integrating direct shopping into Search's AI Mode and Gemini; users can now buy items from Etsy and Wayfair within Gemini (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Google rolls out Gemini 3 Deep Think to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, after saying in November it needed "extra time for safety evaluations" (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/04/gemini-3-deep-think/

Google rolling out Gemini 3 Deep Think to AI Ultra
After previewing last month with the launch of Gemini 3 Pro, the new Deep Think mode is now available for Google AI Ultra subscribers.

Google is introducing new personalized ads in AI mode, powered by Gemini, which allow advertisers to offer exclusives for users preparing to buy a product (Cristina Criddle/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/957c7438-b2e0-4605-a276-caa8a7ec363c

Google adds Gemini 3 to AI Overviews as the default model globally and now lets users ask follow-up questions "seamlessly" via AI Mode (Robert Hart/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/868497/google-ai-search-follow-up-questions-gemini-3

Google Search now lets you ask AI Overviews follow-up questions
Gemini 3 will be the default model for AI Overviews and Google says follow-ups let you jump seamlessly into conversations with AI Mode.

Walmart partners with Google to offer AI-enhanced shopping, allowing users to purchase Walmart and Sam's Club items directly on Gemini (Jaewon Kang/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-11/walmart-team…

The assumption is that one day large language models and other related AI technologies fostered by Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT actually will be a great and infallible productivity tool for genuine work.
It already is decent for providing basic overviews of highly-covered, well-sourced topics, even as hallucinations and sycophancy continue to dog the tech, particularly in situations where accountability is more critical.
Despite today's downsides,
many companies ar…

Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion in funding even if it gets there
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?

So as user of the Google eco-system I can now use Gemini for coding in: Colab, Jules, Anti-Gravity, AI-studio .... 🥳
#ai #google #vibecoding

Demis Hassabis says there aren't "any plans" to put ads in Gemini and, in response to OpenAI testing ads, says "maybe they feel they need to make more revenue" (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/googles-ai-boss-no-plans-for-ads

Google's AI boss: No plans for ads in Gemini
During our convo in Davos, Demis Hassabis and I chatted about ads in AI, Google's new deal with Apple, humanoids, and Gemini 4.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.2, its "best model yet," in Instant, Thinking, and Pro variants, with significant improvements in writing, coding, and reasoning (Maxwell Zeff/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/openai-gpt-launch-gemini-code-red/

OpenAI Launches GPT-5.2 as It Navigates ‘Code Red’
The ChatGPT-maker is releasing its “best model yet” as it faces new pressures from Google and other AI competitors.

Google details steps it is taking to secure Chrome's upcoming agentic browsing features, including a "User Alignment Critic" model that vets AI agent's actions (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/08/gemini-chrome-agentic-security/

Google explains Gemini in Chrome’s agentic browsing security, protections
With Gemini in Chrome and the upcoming availability of agentic capabilities, Google is detailing how the browser will protect against threats.

Google says the Gemini app has 750M MAUs, up from 650M last quarter, and its first-party models process 10B tokens per minute via direct API use by customers (Lauren Forristal/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/04/googles-gemini-app-has…

Google’s Gemini app has surpassed 750M monthly active users | TechCrunch
Google revealed a significant milestone for its Gemini app, announcing over 750 million monthly active users as it competes with ChatGPT and Meta AI.

Google plans to integrate Nano Banana and Veo support into Gemini on Google TV, letting users generate AI videos and modify family photos, first on TCL TVs (Terrence O'Brien/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/tech/854112/gemini-google-tv-nano-banana-veo-ces

Gemini on Google TV is getting Nano Banana and voice-controlled settings
Gemini on Google TV is getting Nano Banana and Veo support, plus natural language control over picture and audio settings.

How Google's ambitious approach to training Gemini on text, code, audio, images, and video helped it stage a powerful comeback, triggering a Code Red at OpenAI (Katherine Blunt/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-ai-open

Researchers say GPT 4.1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3 can reproduce long excerpts from books they were trained on when strategically prompted (Alex Reisner/The Atlantic)
https://www.

AI's Memorization Crisis
Large language models don’t “learn”—they copy. And that could change everything for the tech industry.

Google says the Gemini app is now able to detect images made by Google AI, with plans to roll out verification of video and audio (Dominic Preston/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/824786/google-gemini-synthid-ai-image-detection

Google Gemini is getting better at identifying AI fakes
Google is adding the ability to detect AI-generated images in the Gemini app, but only if they include Google’s own SynthID watermark.

Google rolls out Preferred Sources globally, letting users customize "top stories" in Search, and launches highlighted links from users' news subscriptions (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land)
https://searchengineland.com/google-ro

Google rolling out Preferred Sources globally and announces Spotlighting subscriptions
Spotlighting subscriptions are coming to Gemini first and then AI Mode and AI Overviews within Google Search.

Google's experience in India has become a proving ground to scale AI in education, as the country accounts for the highest global usage of Gemini for learning (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/29/india-is-teaching-google-h…

India is teaching Google how AI in education can scale | TechCrunch
With the highest global usage of Gemini for learning, India is emerging as a key market shaping Google's approach to AI in education.

Google launches Project Genie, which lets users create interactive worlds using Genie 3, Nano Banana Pro, and Gemini, for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US (Jay Peters/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/869726/google-ai-project-genie-3-world-mode…

Google’s AI helped me make bad Nintendo knockoffs
Google is launching Project Genie, an app that lets users test its Genie 3 AI world model, and I got to test it.

Sony launches the $330 WF-1000XM6 earbuds, with AI-powered beamforming mics for enhanced voice call clarity, improved ANC, and hands-free Gemini on Android (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20

A profile of Josh Woodward, the head of Google Labs who is credited with turning around the Gemini app, growing its MAUs from 350M in March to 650M by October (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/20/josh-woodward-google-gemini-ai-safety.html

Google was at risk of losing its dominance — until it promoted this AI executive
Josh Woodward, a 16-year Google veteran, is tasked with running the Gemini app and going head-to-head with OpenAI in the booming generative AI market.

Source: Google DeepMind signs a licensing deal with Hume AI, which builds emotionally intelligent voice interfaces, to hire CEO Alan Cowen and ~7 top engineers (Will Knight/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/google-hires-hume-ai-ceo-licensing-deal-gemini/

Google Acquires Top Talent From AI Voice Startup Hume AI in Licensing Deal
Hume AI’s CEO, Alan Cowen, will join Google DeepMind along with several top engineers as part of a major licensing deal.

Sources: internal Google data shows Gemini API calls surged from 35B in March 2025 to 85B in August 2025; Google says Gemini Enterprise hit 8M subscribers (Erin Woo/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/googles-gemini-sees-skyrocketi…

Google’s Gemini Sees Skyrocketing Business Sales
Google’s improvements to its Gemini AI models are boosting the company’s top line. Over the past year, Google’s business selling access to its Gemini AI models has skyrocketed, reflecting the improving quality of those models, according to three people with knowledge of Gemini’s sales. That’s ...

Google expands its AI Plus subscription to 35 new countries and territories, including the US at $7.99/month, with "enhanced access" to Gemini 3 Pro and more (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2026/01/27/google-ai-plus-us/

Google AI Plus comes to US for $7.99, Google One 2 TB upgraded
After introducing the plan internationally in September, Google is bringing its AI Plus subscription to 35 new countries, including the US. 

How the launch of Gemini 3, which surged ahead of models from OpenAI and other competitors on benchmark tests, has pushed Google ahead in the AI race (Katherine Blunt/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-gemini-3-ai-behind-scenes-e1787729?st…

Google says it's working to create two different categories of AI-powered smart glasses: one with screens launching in 2026 and another that's audio-focused (Chris Welch/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Demis Hassabis says there aren't "any plans" to put ads in Gemini and, in response to OpenAI testing ads, says "maybe they feel they need to make more revenue" (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/googles-ai-boss-no-plans-for-ads

Google's AI boss: No plans for ads in Gemini
During our convo in Davos, Demis Hassabis and I chatted about ads in AI, Google's new deal with Apple, humanoids, and Gemini 4.

Google launches free SAT practice exams in the Gemini app, providing students with performance analysis and detailed explanations for incorrect answers (Lauren Forristal/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/22/google-now-offers-free-sat-pr…

Google now offers free SAT practice exams, powered by Gemini | TechCrunch
Students can prompt Gemini by typing "I want to take a practice SAT test,” and the AI will provide them with a free practice exam. Gemini then analyzes the results, highlighting strengths and identifying areas that need further review. It also offers detailed explanations for any incorrect answers. 

Recon: the US market share of Copilot as paid users' first choice fell from 18.8% in July 2025 to 11.5% in January 2026, while Gemini's rose from 12.8% to 15.7% (Sebastian Herrera/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsofts-piv

ADL study of Grok, ChatGPT, Llama, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek: Grok performed worst at identifying and countering antisemitic content, while Claude was best (Mia Sato/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/868925/adl-ai-…

Grok is the most antisemitic chatbot according to the ADL
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League tested six chatbots for antisemitic content. Claude performed the best at detecting and refuting prompts; Grok performed the worst.

Sources: the US DOT plans to use Gemini to draft federal regulations, cutting the process to just 30 days; the DOT used it to draft a still-unpublished FAA rule (Jesse Coburn/ProPublica)
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-artifi…

Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence
The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”

Samsung upgrades its Family Hub refrigerators with AI features, such as voice control to open and close the door and Gemini-powered AI Vision to track inventory (Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/tech/853758/shut-the-fridge-door

Shut the fridge door!
Voice control opening and closing comes to Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridges.

Samsung co-CEO TM Roh says the company has rolled out Gemini-powered AI features to ~400M mobile devices by 2025, and aims to boost the figure to 800M in 2026 (Hyunjoo Jin/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/samsun

Google invests an undisclosed sum in Sakana AI, valued at $2.6B in November 2025, to boost Gemini's presence in Japan; Sakana AI gains access to Google's LLMs (Min-Jeong Lee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Google says it needs more time to upgrade Assistant to Gemini on most Android devices; Google previously planned to complete the transition by the end of 2025 (Mariella Moon/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-assista

Google Assistant will stick around a bit longer than expected for some Android users
Google has announced that it needs a bit more time to make Gemini the new default digital helper for most of its users.

An interview with Google DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu on his new role as Google's chief AI architect, Gemini 3, progress toward the goal of AGI, and more (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/3b477836-8a87-4ce3-bea1-719f28952a9a
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A deep dive into Apple's AI strategy reset, as it prepares to announce a Gemini-powered personalized Siri next month and a reimagined chatbot-like Siri at WWDC (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletter…

Google updates Gemini in Chrome with a new side panel, an auto browse feature that can navigate pages and take actions for AI Pro and AI Ultra users, and more (Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET)
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/work-life/google-chrome-auto-browse/

Your Google Chrome browser just got a useful autopilot feature - here's how it works
Google's new Auto Browse feature aims to handle your digital chores by taking actions on your behalf.

Google launches Workspace Studio, a no-code tool to create, design, manage, and share AI agents, for users on Business and Enterprise Workspace plans (Abner Li/9to5Google)
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/03/google-workspace-studio/

Google launches Workspace Studio to create automated Gemini-powered agents 
After teasing at I/O 2024 and announcing this April, Google today is launching Workspace Studio as a new automation tool that lets...

Sources: OpenAI is developing a new LLM codenamed Garlic, which performs well when compared to Gemini 3 and Opus 4.5 in coding and reasoning tasks (Stephanie Palazzolo/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-developi…

OpenAI Developing ‘Garlic’ Model to Counter Google’s Recent Gains
OpenAI, which in recent weeks has appeared to fall behind Google in AI development, is fighting back with a new large language model codenamed Garlic.Last week, OpenAI’s chief research officer Mark Chen told some colleagues about the new model, which was performing well on the company’s ...

A study of mental health conversations with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Meta AI: they often failed to recognize signs of conditions and offered general advice (Georgia Wells/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj…

Alphabet's stock rose as much as 6.9% on Wednesday, its biggest gain since early September, amid a wave of glowing reviews for Gemini 3 (Ryan Vlastelica/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-19/alphabet-…