Google’s massive spending on AI is paying off, and that was clear at I/O 2026.
On Tuesday, the tech giant announced cutting-edge products, like the AI agent Spark, that bring it ever closer to its goal of delivering a super-intelligent assistant to its billions of users.
It also showcased soaring traction of its AI products and significant advances in technologies such as AI video generation.
All that progress comes with risk. Google’s AI chief, Demis Hassabis, said humanity is getting closer and closer to the “singularity,” the moment when AI begins to improve itself and outpaces human intelligence.
Google also isn’t quite as dominant in AI as it wants to be. It didn’t launch its biggest new model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, as many had expected, and it’s still not quite at the bleeding edge of hot fields like AI coding.
With the conference’s first day over, here are five major takeaways.
The singularity is coming
Perhaps the most memorable quote from the conference comes from Hassabis.
“When we look back at this time, I think we will realize that we were standing in the foothills of the singularity,” he said during I/O’s keynote speech.
Hassabis said that this will be a good thing, going against those in Silicon Valley who argue that AI will end up harming or even exterminating the human race.
“This technology will be a force multiplier for human ingenuity and usher in a new golden age of scientific discovery and progress, improving the lives of everyone, everywhere,” he said.
Some in the audience gasped at the sweeping statement. One AI startup founder, whom I spoke with afterward, said he took a photo of Hassabis right as he made the statement — for posterity.
As evidence of AI’s potential, Hassabis touted Google’s new Gemini for Science, a set of AI tools intended to supercharge scientific research. Hassabis strongly supports the use of AI in science, which earned him a Nobel Prize in 2024.
Google overhauls Search
It wouldn’t be an I/O conference without an array of new AI product launches. Google didn’t slack on this front, announcing a new AI agent, Spark, that can connect to email and execute tasks without keeping a laptop open.
Google announced a new AI model, Gemini Flash 3.5, optimized for AI agents and especially cost-effective.
The tech giant also announced the biggest-ever makeover of its main cash cow — Google Search. It’s adding its latest AI mode features directly into the search box, while allowing new agents to search for users in the background.
Gemini 3.5 Pro is not ready yet
One letdown, which drew audible groans from the audience, is that Gemini 3.5 Pro isn’t available yet. Many had expected Google to launch its latest frontier model at I/O.
Somewhat apologetically, CEO Sundar Pichai asked people to give Google until next month to deliver it.
“I know you can’t wait to get your hands on it,” Pichai said onstage.
The industry is closely watching Google’s big AI models, especially after Gemini 3 outperformed expectations and cemented its position as an AI leader.
Google burns through quadrillions of AI tokens
Google touted stunning numbers that showcased the rapid adoption of its AI tools.
Most notably, Pichai said that people worldwide now burn through 3.2 quadrillion AI tokens a month by using Google’s products — that’s seven times as much as last year. Many people’s jaws literally dropped at the announcement.
Pichai bragged about other surging numbers.
Google’s Gemini app recently topped 900 million monthly active users, up more than double from 400 million about a year ago.
AI Overviews in Google Search has over 2.5 billion monthly active users, the CEO also said.
Google lags on AI coding — don’t count it out
Three developers interviewed by Business Insider at the conference agreed that Gemini’s coding abilities lag behind rivals like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex. (None of the developers worked at Google, of course.)
Google is trying hard to catch up, and it could do so soon. Google heavily showcased Antigravity, its AI agent development product, at I/O.
Google’s models “are continuing to improve,” which is supercharging its coding abilities as well, DeepMind engineer Varun Mohan, who cofounded the AI coding startup Windsurf, told Business Insider at the conference before a Google staffer shuffled him away.
“I think we’re on a great track,” he added.
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