Google Announces The Googlebook, Android 17 and Gemini Updates

We may earn compensation from reviewed products. Learn about our editorial policies.

Need-to-knows

• Android is being repositioned as an “intelligence system”
• Gemini Intelligence will become a premium AI tier, launching first on Samsung
• Googlebook is a brand new laptop category combining Android, Google Play, and Chrome
• Android Auto gets Gemini integration
• Most features to roll out by end of 2026

---

Google has overhauled Android from the ground up, woven Gemini into just about everything, and unveiled a brand new laptop category called Googlebook. It’s the biggest Android announcement in years.

This was all announced at a press briefing this week, and there’s a lot to unpack. The short version: Android is no longer just a mobile operating system. Google wants it to be the AI backbone of your entire digital life from phone to car to laptop.

Let’s go through it all!

Gemini Intelligence

The headline phone feature is Gemini Intelligence, a premium layer of AI capabilities coming first to Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices later this summer.

The centrepiece is task automation. Rather than just answering questions, Gemini will actually do things on your behalf across approved apps. Book a fitness class, grab event tickets, order a ride, all without you touching each app individually. Snap a photo of a flyer and it can find similar events on Expedia. It’s agentic AI (that phrase which everyone seems to be using these days), basically, baked directly into Android.

More Google: Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review

A few other features stand out:

• Chrome auto-browse (arriving late June) lets Gemini handle web tasks for you
• Smart autofill pulls passport numbers, licence details, and plate numbers into forms across apps and Chrome.
• Rambler cleans up voice input on the fly: strips filler words, restructures your sentences, even handles mid-sentence language switches.
• Create-a-widget does what it says — describe something you want to track, Gemini builds a home-screen widget for it.

Worth flagging: all of this is hardware-gated. If you’re not on a premium Samsung or Pixel device, you’ll be waiting longer to get compatability.

Android 17

Beyond Gemini, Android 17 lands a solid set of platform updates.

The camera partnership with Instagram is interesting. Google is claiming Android upload quality now matches or beats that of the iPhone with Ultra HDR, native stabilisation, and night mode all part of the deal. Whether that holds up in the real world remains to be seen, but it’s a bold benchmark to set publicly.

Best mid-ranger? Pixel 10a review

Creators get a couple of genuinely useful additions. Screen Reactions lets you record yourself alongside your screen in a single tap. Adobe Premiere is also coming to Android this summer with YouTube Shorts templates built in. Smart Enhance and AI audio-track separation will be exclusive to Android via the Edits app.

Then there’s Pause Point, a friction layer that pops up on whatever apps you’ve flagged as distracting. You can set it to prompt a breathing exercise, a quick photo swipe, or just a timer before you can continue. Honestly, it feels like something like this is long overdue.

File sharing gets a boost: Quick Share is expanding AirDrop compatibility and adding cross-platform sharing inside apps like WhatsApp. Switching from another platform is also getting easier, with passwords and home screen layouts now transferring wirelessly on Samsung and Pixel.

Oh, and there’s 4,000 redesigned emojis. Great!

Android Auto

The in-car update is headlined by a new immersive 3D navigation experience that Google’s pitching as the biggest Maps update in over a decade.

Gemini extends to Android Auto now too, handling things proactively mid-drive like pulling addresses from your Calendar automatically or placing food orders while you’re on the road. The adaptive UI adjusts to any screen shape and syncs the Material 3 Expressive visual redesign from your phone.

Need some help choosing? Here’s my best phone guide!

Interestingly, video playback is coming to 11 car brands giving you 60fps HD when parked but audio-only when you start moving, plus full Dolby Atmos across 8 brands. And for cars with Google Built-In, live lane guidance uses the car’s front camera for real-time lane positioning which is a meaningful step up from the current experience.

Googlebook

This is the biggest announcement from Google of perhaps the last decade. Googlebook is a brand new laptop category, and Google isn’t being subtle about what it’s taking aim at. We’re looking at you MacBook Neo…

The pitch: bring together Android OS, the full Google Play app library, and Chrome’s browser and extension ecosystem, all with Gemini running throughout. The first Googlebooks are being built with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo with full hardware details are being saved for the autumn. Every device will feature a distinctive glowbar design element that Google describes as “functional and beautiful”…we’ll see how true that one turns out to be.

Latest: Is the MacBook Ultra coming?

The software story is where things get really interesting. The ‘Magic Pointer’, built with the Google DeepMind team, aims to reimagine the cursor. Wiggle it, and it surfaces contextual AI suggestions based on whatever’s on screen: hover a date in an email to create a meeting, or select two images (say, your living room and a new sofa) to visualise them together with Gemini.

Create-a-widget works on Googlebook too which I’m really excited to try out and find workflow efficinecies. Ask Gemini to pull together your flights, hotel, restaurant reservations, and a countdown for an upcoming trip, and it will build you a single personalised desktop widget.

More laptops: M4 MacBook Air review

Quick Access means your phone’s files appear natively in the laptop file browser without any transfers. And phone apps sit directly on the laptop home screen, so no picking up of your phone required.

Fifteen years ago, Google introduced the Chromebook for a cloud-first world and it definitely managed to capture a large portion of the market. The Googlebook is the same bet for an AI-first one. Will it be as successful? I can’t wait to find out!

The big picture

This was a massive announcement from Google, in both a literal sense and a philosophical one. It not only reaffirms their commitment to making Gemini ubiquitous across the lives of users who don’t even have their devices, but it also marks a direct challenge to the MacBook Neo.

Still deciding between platforms? My Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review might help

The fact that Google has felt the need to act illustrates just how successful the Neo has been, and how much it took the industry by surprise. Time will tell who wins out!