X-twitter Facebook-f Pinterest-p
X-twitter Facebook-f Pinterest-p

Your Android phone is getting agentic powers with Gemini Intelligence – here’s how and when


Google's new 'Gemini Intelligence' makes Android agentic - here's how

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

ZDNET’s key takeaways

  • Gemini Intelligence automates multi-step tasks across apps.
  • It also powers new Rambler and Create My Widget features.
  • Gemini Intelligence will roll out first to Galaxy and Pixel phones.

At I/O 2026, Google announced something called Gemini Intelligence. It’s the company’s next step toward turning Android from a mobile OS into a personal AI agent that can get things done for you on your phone.

Also: I tested ChatGPT Plus vs. Gemini Pro to see which is better

It can automate multi-step tasks across your Android apps and even enable new features in Chrome, Autofill, Gboard, and widgets.

How Gemini Intelligence makes Android agentic

Gemini Intelligence is different from Gemini in Search, where Google’s AI can summarize your web results. It’s also different from Gemini in Workspace, where it lives inside apps like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets, or the standalone Gemini app, where you open the AI chatbot and ask for help. Gemini Intelligence is built into Android and can understand what’s on your screen.

With Gemini Intelligence, you won’t have to hop between apps to copy information, paste it elsewhere, and do every step yourself.

Also: You can turn off Gemini in Gmail, Photos, Chrome – here’s how

Gemini Intelligence can now handle several different app-based tasks for you. In practice, that could look like helping you get a front-row bike during a spin class, finding a college course syllabus buried in Gmail and adding books to your cart, turning a grocery list in your notes into a delivery, or using a photo of a travel brochure to find a relevant tour on Expedia for six people.

For the grocery list scenario, Google described how you can “long press the power button over the list and ask Gemini to build a shopping cart.” Or, for the brochure, you can “snap a photo of it and say: ‘Find a tour like this…’.”

These are all examples provided by Google. It said multi-app tasks will run in the background, with progress updates surfaced via notifications, and that you can approve any and all confirmations before they’re completed.

That is what makes Android more agentic. Gemini Intelligence isn’t the same old Gemini experience you’re familiar with, where you search a query or provide a prompt, and the AI gives you a paragraph response. It’s a system-level operator that understands screen context, acts across apps, and gets work done that would otherwise require app-switching and entering data.

Other Gemini Intelligence upgrades

Google announced several more Gemini upgrades for Android users — beyond the broader Gemini Intelligence layer that’s handling multi-step tasks across apps. There are additional Gemini Intelligence integrations and improvements to existing Gemini features.

1. Auto Browse comes to Chrome on Android… sort of

Chrome has a Gemini-powered Auto Browse feature, but it’s not available on mobile yet. It’s in preview and limited to the Chrome desktop app on MacOS, Windows, and Chromebooks. It’s agentic, meaning it can work across your open tabs and complete certain online tasks for you, such as building a delivery cart, booking an appointment, or making a reservation.

Also: I let Chrome’s AI agent shop, research, and email for me

In June, Chrome on Android will get a similar Gemini feature that helps you research, summarize, and compare content across the web. But ordering, booking, and reservation tasks will still require Auto Browse on desktop. So, for now, Android users appear to be getting Gemini’s ability to work across tabs, with that functionality rolling out in conjunction with Gemini Intelligence.

2. Autofill on Android gets Personal Intelligence

Google offers a Personal Intelligence feature to free and paid Gemini users. It basically connects the AI to your Google apps, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Photos, and YouTube, to provide more personalized answers. Now, Autofill in Chrome on Android is getting a dash of Personal Intelligence magic to make it easier to complete complicated forms with your specific information.

Also: I tried Personal Intelligence, and it was useful (but unsettling)

The idea is that, instead of just filling in your name, address, and passwords, Autofill can leverage Personal Intelligence to fill out forms with your personal data pulled from connected Google apps. Google didn’t provide an example, but imagine you’re filling out a product return form, and Gemini can see your Gmail history to find a receipt and add the order number and other details.

Google said this new Autofill experience with Personal Intelligence is entirely opt-in and can be turned on or off in your settings.

3. ‘Rambler,’ Gemini Intelligence-powered dictation

Getting into the weeds of AI upgrades now, Gboard on Android is gaining a Gemini Intelligence-powered dictation feature called Rambler. It sounds like it’s built for anyone who uses voice-to-text and then spends twice as long cleaning up their messages.

Also: 6 underrated Android features that are seriously useful

Rambler is a real-time transcription tool that takes natural speech, including mid-sentence corrections, filler words like “um,” and multilingual switching, and turns it into a better, accurate message. Google said it’s designed for the way people actually speak.

4. Create a widget on Android with Gemini Intelligence

Last but not least, there is Create My Widget. Google said it’s using the power of generative AI to help you create widgets fast.

Also: My 7 favorite Android widgets to make your phone more useful

You can describe the Android or WearOS widget you want, and Gemini Intelligence will build it for you. Google gave examples like a weather widget that shows wind speed and rain for cyclists or a meal-prep widget. It said you could ask Create My Widget to suggest “high-protein meal prep recipes” weekly and watch as it builds a dashboard to add to your screen.

When will Gemini Intelligence roll out?

Gemini Intelligence will “roll out in waves” this summer, according to Google. It’ll start on the latest Samsung Galaxy and Pixel phones and expand later in 2026 to more Android devices, watches, cars, glasses, and laptops.





Source link

Leave a Reply

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Get our latest articles delivered straight to your inbox. No spam, we promise.

Forget the RAV4—the Corolla Cross Hybrid makes more sense

The World’s Most “Dangerous” AI, Anthropic’s Mythos, found only one flaw in curl

5 Key Components of an Effective Cyber Incident Response Plan in 2026

Attackers exploit cPanel CVE-2026-41940 to deploy Filemanager Backdoor

Modern phones are locked down, but this legendary HTC ran every operating system imaginable (even Ubuntu)

The World’s Most “Dangerous” AI, Anthropic’s Mythos, found only one flaw in curl

5 Key Components of an Effective Cyber Incident Response Plan in 2026

Attackers exploit cPanel CVE-2026-41940 to deploy Filemanager Backdoor

Samsung Micro RGB vs. QLED vs. OLED: I compared all three and found a surprising winner

The World’s Most “Dangerous” AI, Anthropic’s Mythos, found only one flaw in curl

5 Key Components of an Effective Cyber Incident Response Plan in 2026

Attackers exploit cPanel CVE-2026-41940 to deploy Filemanager Backdoor

Recent Reviews

Modern phones are locked down, but this legendary HTC ran every operating system imaginable (even Ubuntu)


When you pick out a phone, you’re also picking out the operating system—that typically means Android or iOS. What if a phone didn’t follow those rules? What if it could run any OS you wanted? This is the story of the legendary HTC HD2.

Microsoft makes a mess with Windows Mobile

The HD2 arrives at an unfortunate time

windows mobile 6.5 Credit: Pocketnow

Officially, the HTC HD2 (HTC Leo) launched in November 2009 with Windows Mobile 6.5. Microsoft had already been working on Windows Phone for a few years at this point, and it was planned to be released in 2009. However, multiple delays forced Microsoft to release Windows Mobile 6.5 as a stopgap update to Windows Mobile 6.1.

Microsoft’s plan for mobile devices was a mess at this time. The HD2 didn’t launch in North America until March 2010—one month after Windows Phone 7 had been announced at Mobile World Congress. Originally, the HD2 was supposed to be upgraded to Windows Phone 7, but Microsoft later decided no Windows Mobile devices would get the new OS.

This left the HD2 stuck between a rock and a hard place. Launched as the final curtain was dropping on one OS, but too early to be upgraded to the next OS. Thankfully, HTC was not just any manufacturer, and the HD2 was not just any phone.

The HD2 was better than it had any right to be

HTC made a beast of a phone

HTC HD2 Credit: HTC

HTC was one of the best smartphone manufacturers of the late 2000s and 2010s. It manufactured the first Android phone, the first Google Pixel phone, and several of the most iconic smartphones of the last two decades. Much of the company’s reputation for premium, high-quality hardware stems from the HD2.

The HD2 was the first smartphone with a 4.3-inch touchscreen—considered huge at the time—and one of the first smartphones with a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. That processor, along with 512GB of RAM, made the HD2 more future-proof than HTC probably ever intended. Phones would be launching with those same specs for the next couple of years.

For all intents and purposes, the HD2 was the most powerful phone on the market. It just so happened to run the most limiting mobile OS of the time. If the software situation could be improved, there was clearly tons of potential.

The phone that could do it all

Android, Windows Phone, Ubuntu, and more

The key to the HD2’s hackability was HTC’s open design philosophy. It had an easily unlockable bootloader, and it could boot operating systems from the NAND flash and SD cards.

First, the community took to righting a wrong and bringing Windows Phone 7 to the HD2. This was thanks to a custom bootloader called “MAGLDR”—Windows Phone 7.5 and 8 would eventually get ported, too. The floodgates had opened, and Windows Phone was the least of what this beast of a phone could do.

Android on the HTC HD2? No problem. Name a version of the OS, and the HD2 had a port of it: 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.1/2/3 Jelly Bean, 4.4 Kitkat, 5.0 Lollipop, 6.0 Marshmallow, 7.0 Nougat, and 8.1 Oreo. Yes, the HD2 was still getting ports seven years after it launched.

But why stop at Android? The HD2 was ripe for all sorts of Linux builds. Ubuntu—including Ubuntu Touch—, Debian, Firefox OS, and Nokia’s MeeGo were ported as well. The cool thing about the HD2 was that it could dual-boot OS’. You didn’t have to commit to just one system at a time. It was truly like having a PC in your pocket, and the tech community loved it.

Do a web search for “HTC HD2” now, and you’ll find many articles about the phone getting yet another port of an OS. It became a running joke that the HD2 would get new versions of Android before officially supported Android phones did. People called it “the phone that refuses to die,” but it was the community that kept it alive.

The last of its kind

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to”

HTC HD2 close up Credit: TechRepublic

The HTC HD2 was a phone from a very different time. It may have gotten more headlines, but there were plenty of other phones being heavily modded and unofficially upgraded back then. Unlockable bootloaders were much more common, and that created opportunities for enthusiasts.

I can attest to how different it was in the early years of the smartphone boom. My first smartphone was another HTC device, the DROID Eris from Verizon. I have fond memories of scouring the XDA-Developers forums for custom ROMs and installing the latest Kaos builds on a whim during college lectures. Sadly, it’s been many years since I attempted that level of customization.

It’s not all doom and gloom for modern smartphones, though. Long-term support has gotten considerably better than it was back in 2010. As mentioned, the HD2 never officially received Windows Phone 7, and it never got any other updates, either. My DROID Eris stopped getting updates a mere eight months after release.

Compare that to phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S26, Google Pixel 10, and iPhone 17, which will all be supported through 2032. You may not be able to dual-boot a completely different OS on these phones, but they won’t be dead in the water in less than a year. We will likely never see a phone like the HTC HD2 from a major manufacturer again.

HTC Droid Eris


A Love Letter to My First Smartphone, the HTC Droid Eris

No, not that DROID.



Source link

CPUID watering hole attack spreads STX RAT malware

How Cyber Tabletop Exercises Reveal Weaknesses That Other Audits Miss

10 Secure Team Communication Platforms for Security Companies in 2026

Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved.