Google IO 2026: Google has officially announced a slew of Gemini AI upgrades at its annual developer event. The company introduced new Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Omni, along with some changes to the Gemini app. Both models feature enhanced capabilities and will be available in the coming weeks, the company stated. Here is a detailed look at the Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Omni.
Google has announced its all-new Gemini 3.5 Flash. The company stated that the model is designed to deliver faster responses without sacrificing reasoning or coding performance. According to Google, Gemini 3.5 Flash can outperform Gemini 3.1 Pro in several coding and agentic AI benchmarks while also improving multimodal understanding.
The model is said to be capable enough to perform long-duration workflows, sub-agent deployment, and interactive UI generation. The company has already started rolling out Gemini 3.5 Flash across the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search. The company also confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently in development and is expected to launch next month.
Yet another new thing at the IO was Omni, a new multimodal AI video model capable of generating editable videos using combinations of text, images, audio, and existing video clips. Unlike the Veo, which primarily focused on text-to-video generation, Gemini Omni allows users to modify scenes, characters, and visual elements using text prompts.
The company also said that the model comes with improved understanding of real-world physics, such as motion, gravity, and fluid behaviour, in order to make more realistic outputs. For potential misuse concerns, the company has also announced that Gemini Omni will carry SynthID digital watermarks.
The first version, Gemini Omni Flash, is rolling out today through the Gemini app, Google Flow and YouTube Shorts. While YouTube Shorts users will get access for free, Gemini app and Flow support will remain limited to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers.
Alongside new AI models, Google has redesigned the Gemini app with a refreshed interface called Neural Expressive. The update introduces new animations, typography, colour treatments and haptic feedback across Android, iOS and web versions of the app.
Google is also expanding Gemini Live, allowing users to seamlessly switch between voice conversations and text input during interactions. Responses are also becoming more visual, with Gemini now capable of generating timelines, interactive graphics, narrated explainers and richer media-based outputs instead of plain text replies.