An engineer is probably watching a phone somewhere in Mountain View do something it was never intended to do, like open a delivery service, read a grocery list from the Notes app, and silently construct a cart while the user is doing something completely different. In a sense, Google’s new Android push is based entirely on that modest, unglamorous moment. It doesn’t have the feel of a new product. It feels more like a slow rewrite of what a phone actually is.
Google released Gemini Intelligence earlier this month. According to the company, this feature set will transform Android devices from the app drawers we’ve been swiping through for more than ten years into something more akin to proactive assistants. This summer, the Samsung Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10 will be the first devices to be released. Later in the year, watches, cars, laptops, and glasses will be added. As you watch the announcement, you get the impression that Google is promoting a different relationship with the gadget in your pocket rather than a feature.
“Personal supercomputer” sounds like marketing, and perhaps it is. However, it’s also not wholly incorrect. Tasks that would have destroyed a desktop tower fifteen years ago are already handled by modern Android chips. The phone becomes less of a single device and more of a gateway into a distributed brain when cloud-based Gemini models handle the labor-intensive tasks of browsing, planning, and writing. Executives enjoy waving their hands over such things. Quietly, it’s also beginning to come true.
The agentic layer is what sets this version apart and makes it more difficult to write it off as just another Assistant-style failure. Google refers to it as “agentic automation” on Android 17 and Auto Browse on Chrome. When you ask the phone what you want, it determines how. Go to a shopping app, locate the course syllabus in Gmail, and add the books to the cart. Take a picture of a travel brochure and instruct Gemini to make a similar reservation on Expedia. Another question is whether it really functions that smoothly. Google acknowledged that the initial rollouts with DoorDash and Uber were annoying. Tuning has taken place. Skepticism is still justified.
Here, the cultural rhyme is difficult to ignore. Google unveiled the Chromebook for a cloud-first world fifteen years ago. With the release of the Googlebook, the first laptop based on Gemini Intelligence, the company is publicly discussing the transition “from an operating system to an intelligence system.” No one at Google would say whether the Chromebook line will eventually be superseded by the Googlebook. Perhaps they are still unaware. Perhaps they do, but they’re keeping it a secret.
The same conviction is emerging outside of Google’s bubble. Executives at Qualcomm describe the operating system as “disappearing into the background.” While discreetly retooling its own AI aspirations, Apple continues to release slightly thinner iPhones. Amazon and Meta are placing bets on gadgets that can see what you see and hear what you hear, such as bracelets and glasses. The smartphone may survive. However, it might no longer be the main event.
It’s worthwhile to sit with the tension in all of this. Convenience is the selling point: fewer menus, more results, and less tapping. The price is more difficult to pinpoint. Google claims that when the assistant takes care of the logistics, the user’s focus shifts to the current situation; detractors would counter that it shifts to whatever the platform chooses to highlight. Google maintains that the user maintains control, that Gemini only responds to commands, and that it ends when the task is completed. A tap is still needed for final confirmation. For the time being.
Investors appear to accept the wager. An ecosystem where AI acts as a mediator between users and apps is already being pushed towards developers. It’s still unclear if the general public will notice the change or simply absorb it like they did with touchscreens. The phone you’ll be holding in two years will undoubtedly be able to do much more on its own and require much less.
