Google used its I/O 2026 event to announce some of its biggest AI upgrades yet, including the launch of Gemini Omni, a new multimodal AI system that can understand and generate text, images, audio and video together. The company also introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, a faster AI model that now powers upgraded AI features across Google Search, Gemini and Workspace apps. Search is getting a major redesign with conversational AI, live image and video queries, and AI agents that can perform tasks and track information for users. Google also showed new AI video generation tools, smarter Gemini Live features and deeper Gemini integration across Android, Chrome and future XR devices.
The headline reveal at the event was Gemini Omni, a next-generation multimodal AI architecture designed to process and generate multiple forms of media simultaneously. Unlike earlier AI systems that handled text or images separately, Gemini Omni combines visual understanding, voice interaction, video generation and reasoning into a single model. Google demonstrated how users could upload images, provide spoken instructions and generate short cinematic videos complete with synchronized sound and animated scenes.
A major focus of the keynote was Omni Flash, the first public model built on the Gemini Omni framework. According to the Sundar Pichai-led firm, the system can create short AI-generated video clips from text prompts, animate still images, edit generated scenes conversationally and respond to combined text, audio and image inputs in real time. The company said Omni Flash currently supports short-form video generation but is expected to expand into longer and more advanced production workflows over time. The move places the tech titan directly into the rapidly growing AI video race currently led by platforms like OpenAI’s Sora and Adobe Firefly. However, Google’s approach differs by deeply integrating generative media into Search, Android, Gemini and YouTube ecosystems instead of offering it as a standalone experimental product.
Along with Gemini Omni, Google introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, which now acts as the company’s primary fast-response AI model across consumer services. The company said Gemini 3.5 Flash combines ‘Pro-level’ reasoning capabilities with Flash-class inference speed, allowing it to deliver advanced responses without the heavy computational overhead typically associated with larger frontier AI systems. Google also confirmed that the model supports native multimodal input processing across text, images, audio and video while maintaining near real-time response performance for conversational workloads.
Benchmark results shared by Google showed the model scoring 90.4% on GPQA Diamond, a benchmark widely used to test PhD-level scientific reasoning, while also reaching 81.2% on MMMU-Pro for multimodal understanding tasks. In coding-focused evaluations, Gemini 3.5 Flash achieved 78% on SWE-bench Verified, outperforming several earlier Gemini generations. These capabilities become even more significant because Gemini 3.5 Flash is now being deployed across Search, Workspace, Android and Gemini-powered assistants at a massive scale. Developers are expected to gain access through Google AI Studio, Vertex AI, Gemini API and Android Studio integrations, allowing Gemini 3.5 Flash to power enterprise-scale automation and consumer-facing AI applications simultaneously.
In parallel, Search itself received one of the most dramatic redesigns in Google’s history. AI Mode, previously introduced in limited form, is now expanding into a much more advanced conversational search experience powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash. Users can ask longer and more detailed questions, upload screenshots, PDFs, photos and videos directly into Search, and continue conversations with contextual follow-up prompts. Rather than returning only a list of links, Search increasingly acts like an interactive AI assistant capable of understanding complex tasks and generating personalized responses.
Google demonstrated Search analyzing images, summarizing documents and responding to live video-based questions. The company said this multimodal Search experience is designed to reduce friction between information discovery and task completion. One of the most significant parts of the Search overhaul involves AI agents. Google previewed autonomous Gemini-powered agents capable of monitoring information continuously and taking actions on behalf of users. These agents can reportedly track flight prices, follow sports scores, monitor topics for updates, organize emails and provide proactive notifications based on user interests.
Another major announcement was Gemini Spark, a new autonomous AI assistant designed to work continuously in the background. The firm also unveiled Daily Brief, a personalized AI-generated dashboard that combines information from Gmail, Calendar, tasks and news into one continuously updated summary feed. Apart from productivity software, the search giant continued expanding its AI hardware ambitions through Android XR and wearable computing. The company showed Gemini-powered smart glasses and XR experiences where AI can provide live contextual assistance through visual interfaces.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
