Google launches Gemini Intelligence, and the assistant can now run Android

Google is keeping pace and once again announcing new capabilities for its Gemini assistant. This time the company is widening Gemini's presence in everyday use of an Android smartphone, turning the helper into a manager of your device. The move comes right before the main event of the year, Google I/O, where the company usually reveals its strategic AI bets.

Gemini is now everywhere

Google is steadily integrating Gemini into far more places than before. The assistant will appear in the Chrome browser on Android, and you will be able to call it up directly from the search screen. Gemini will also move into autofill suggestions when you fill in forms and input fields. It will also be built more deeply into third-party apps: developers will be able to let users summon the assistant for their own purposes.

In effect, Google is building an ecosystem where Gemini becomes a pervasive force. Instead of opening a specific app, you will say or type what needs doing, and Gemini will try to carry out the task. This requires a substantial rethink of how people interact with Android and assumes users will come to trust the assistant more than before.

Gemini Intelligence: a premium brand for advanced devices

Google has introduced a new name: Gemini Intelligence. It is positioned as a way to gather the best of Gemini's capabilities and offer them to users of the most advanced Android devices. According to Ben Greenwood, director of Android experience, the name brings together both existing and entirely new features in a single premium ecosystem.

The name is no accident. Google clearly wants to create a sense of exclusivity and power. Gemini Intelligence will get a distinctive look with a Liquid Glass effect, a visual treatment that sets this version apart from regular Gemini and hints to the user that they are holding something special. It lets users tell that they are running something more advanced and more demanding on resources.

"Gemini

Intelligence brings the best of Gemini to our most advanced Android devices," says Ben Greenwood.

The company is, in effect, saying: if you have a flagship phone with a powerful processor and plenty of memory, deeper assistant integration is available to you. If you have a budget device, you will use a simpler, less integrated version of Gemini. That encourages hardware upgrades.

A response to the growing trend of AI agents

Google does not hide that it wants to make the assistant the central way to control the phone. This is a direct response to the growing popularity of agents such as OpenAI Operator and other systems that perform tasks in the browser and in apps on the user's behalf. Bringing Gemini to more places is part of Google's strategy to capture this trend inside the mobile operating system, where Google holds a huge market share.

Restricting this to the "most advanced" devices makes sense for two reasons. First, it gently pushes users toward flagships and new phones. Second, it lets Google test new and potentially unstable features on a controlled, tech-savvy audience before a mass release.

What this means

Google is placing a deep bet that interaction with the phone will increasingly happen through voice, text and commands to the assistant, rather than through app icons and the familiar menu. If Gemini Intelligence works, it could redefine how users see the role of the operating system and the role of apps as a whole.

For app developers, this means preparing for Gemini integration rather than relying only on a traditional launcher icon. The smartphone is becoming an agent, not just a collection of apps.