At its I/O 2026 developer conference, Google announced a major overhaul of its search engine. According to the company, the search bar is receiving its biggest upgrade in 25 years. Gemini 3.5 Flash will become the new standard model in AI Mode. Google is also introducing information agents that monitor in the background 24/7, along with a customized user interface.
The revamped search bar dynamically adapts to the user’s query. Instead of standard autocomplete, the bar provides AI-driven suggestions that help formulate a question. Input can include text, images, files, videos, or open Chrome tabs. The rollout has begun immediately in all countries and languages where AI Mode is available.
With Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google is also taking the next step, focusing on agentic workloads and coding tasks. This model series was also unveiled at I/O. The models promise to be particularly effective at quickly generating high-quality agents. “It’s our strongest agentic and coding model yet, outperforming Gemini 3.1 Pro on challenging coding and agentic benchmarks like Terminal-Bench 2.1 (76.2%), GDPval-AA (1656 Elo) and MCP Atlas (83.6%), and leading in multimodal understanding (84.2% on CharXiv Reasoning). When looking at output tokens per second, it is 4 times faster than other frontier models,” according to Google.
Information agents run 24/7 in the background
Another new feature is the introduction of information agents in Search. These agents continuously monitor blogs, news sites, social media posts, and real-time financial and sports data, and send updates when something relevant appears. Think of monitoring a rental property that meets specific requirements or flagging a new sneaker release. Information agents will launch this summer, initially for Google AI Pro & Ultra subscribers. Google is also expanding its booking functionality: for services such as beauty and household services, Google can even call companies on behalf of the user upon request.
Generative UI and mini-apps directly in Search
With Google Antigravity and Gemini 3.5 Flash, Search can now build answers within a dynamic, custom-made interface. This results in interactive visuals, tables, simulations, or graphs generated based on the query. Someone looking for a fitness plan gets a working tracker. Those who want to understand astrophysics will get an interactive simulation. These generative UI capabilities will be available to everyone for free this summer. Mini-apps and custom dashboards will follow in the coming months, first for AI Pro & Ultra subscribers in the U.S. Other regions will follow later.
Personal Intelligence expanded to 200 countries
Finally, Google is expanding Personal Intelligence in AI Mode to nearly 200 countries and 98 languages, without a subscription. Users can link Gmail and Google Photos for personalized search results. Earlier this year, we reported that AI Mode gained access to Gmail and Photos for better search results. Google Calendar will follow soon. Users retain full control over which apps they link.
Tip: Google enhances Gemini Deep Research with Interactions API