Your Android phone is getting agentic powers with Gemini Intelligence - here's how and when

Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence Your Android phone is getting agentic powers with Gemini Intelligence - here's how and when Gemini got a major agentic upgrade on Android, handling multi-step tasks across apps - and powering new features. Written by Elyse Betters Picaro, Senior Contributing EditorSenior Contributing Editor May 12, 2026 at 10:01 a.m. PT

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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.

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.

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

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.

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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: Android will hang up on banking scammers for you now

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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