Google on Thursday unveiled the "Gemini Agent" at its Gemini at Work 2026 event — a "universal agent for work" that lives inside Google Workspace and can independently complete work tasks. CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is starting with business customers before rolling it out to consumers. The AI agent wars among tech giants are now fully underway.
Unlike traditional chatbots that merely respond to prompts, the Gemini Agent plans the work, uses tools, connects to a company's business systems and returns finished work in documents, email and developer environments. Within a single interface it can answer questions, handle knowledge work, create images and video, and write and run code — operating across Gmail, Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Chat and Calendar, and connecting to outside tools such as Slack, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Jira and Git, plus data platforms like Snowflake, Databricks and BigQuery.
Pichai said Google is beginning with enterprises to solve the "harder problems around security, scale, and performance." The company highlighted three ways the agent can work: as a personal assistant, proactively suggesting and delegating tasks, and as a "coworker agent" that works alongside a team. Industry-specific versions for financial services and legal teams are now in preview, with government, healthcare and retail versions coming soon. Google says nearly 80% of Google Cloud customers use its AI products, and almost 90% of Fortune 100 firms use Gemini Enterprise.
Notably, the agent picks the best model for each task: it currently runs on Google's own Gemini models and Anthropic's Claude models, with other models to be added later. It also carries data and analytics skills for both technical teams and everyday business workers, and maintains a continuing record of user preferences, previous tasks and business context so work continues seamlessly across devices and apps.
Users can create "coworker agents" that act as team members, with their own email address, calendar and Drive, and access only to the information they are given. Because the agent runs in the cloud, assignments continue after employees close their laptops. Google pitched it to smaller firms too: "For small and midsize businesses, with lean teams and margins, Gemini will be a critical tool for you to operate efficiently, deliver excellent customer experiences, and grow."
The timing is pointed: OpenAI launched its always-on agents called "dots" in September, Meta released its personal AI agent Muse last month, and Microsoft revamped its own agentic offering. Wall Street's reaction was muted — Alphabet shares rose marginally in early trading before surrendering most gains — suggesting investors thought Google's entry was only a matter of time. The battle of the AI agents is well and truly underway.