Google Just Announced Three New Gemini Upgrades for Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10

To coincide with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S26, Google announced three Gemini-related upgrades for Android, first coming to the Galaxy S26 series and the Google Pixel 10 line. In fact, one of these new features appears to be a significant step forward for AI on smartphones: the ability for Gemini to handle multi-step tasks on an Android phone. Examples Google gives are booking a ride through Uber or rearranging a meal on DoorDash, where the AI ​​takes care of everything in the background, leaving you free to worry about whether it’s going to work.

Google wants Gemini to perform tasks on your behalf

“When you’re working on a repetitive daily task, it’s easy to daydream about handing it off to someone else,” Google explains in the announcement blog post. “Now we are showing a first glimpse of what is possible.” Naturally, it has a “beta” label as well as an “early preview” label, and it will initially only be available on Galaxy S26 phones and Pixel 10 phones (the Pixel 10a is missing). For starters, this will also be limited to the United States and South Korea.

According to Google, the process will be tightly controlled: automations start with your voice command and end as soon as the task is completed. Live notifications will keep you informed throughout and you can step in and take manual control at any time. Additionally, the app runs in a “secure virtual window” on your phone, with restricted access to the app.

It’s going to be interesting to see how well this works. If it works well, this seems like a landmark moment to get AI to actually do mobile tasks for us. It’s unclear whether Google needs permission from a third-party app for this, but for now the feature will be available “for select apps” in the food, grocery, and rideshare categories.

Google upgrades Circle to search and scam detection

Next, Google is upgrading Circle to Search on Android, the feature that lets you circle anything on the screen and search from it. Circle to Search can do everything from finding a lamp online to alerting you to a phishing scam.

Now Circle to Search will be able to search for multiple items on the screen at once. This could be different furniture in a room or different clothes in an outfit. You don’t actually make the selections yourself: you simply circle the relevant area (or the entire screen) and Gemini selects the various constituent parts.

“We know that sometimes you don’t just search for one thing on your screen, you search for the whole thing,” Google explains. “Whether you’re creating a mood board, building an entire outfit, or simply satisfying your curiosity on multiple levels… Circle to Search just got a whole lot more useful.”

Circle to Search can now search for multiple items in a search.
Credit: Google

Google is also integrating the ability to virtually try on clothes from your phone into the Circle to Search feed. It’s similar to the Gemini multi-step process above, with the AI ​​taking on multiple sequential tasks to (in theory) be even more useful. Technically, Google calls this a query serving technique. Again, this will be exclusive to the Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10 phones, with no word yet on this potential expansion to other handsets.

Finally, the latest upgrade is more of a broader rollout than a new feature. The scam detection AI that Android uses to detect if you’re being scammed in real-time is coming to the Galaxy S26 series for users in the US. It is already offered on several Pixel models in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India and Ireland. The same technology is also currently available in Google Messages to detect text-based scams, and Google says it is “improving” how it works to recognize more varied scams, starting with the Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10 devices. The new and improved technology will use in-device patterns to better spot the techniques scammers are using.