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Google Archive

Archives for August 2026

Google’s Pixel Watch 5 is promising — but it isn’t finished

8

Verge Score

Think of this as part one of the Pixel Watch 5 review as most of the new features aren’t out yet. That said, GPS rocks.

Victoria Song
Google’s Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era

8

Verge Score

A great foldable with IP68 and a reliable triple camera, trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.

Dominic Preston
The Pixel 11 Pro is a great phone, no thanks to its flashiest new features

Forget HiLight and Proactive Assistance. The Pixel 11 Pro is at its best with focused new tools that actually work.

David Imel
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
New Googlebook announcements are coming in September.

It’s been a few months since Google revealed its Chromebook successor / sibling, and all’s been quiet since — at least officially, with leaks of laptops from Lenovo and Asus. We’ll know more soon: Google invited outlets including The Verge to a media event in September where we’ll get to “test out the laptops and new features.”

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Claude can do more with Gmail and Google Drive, and access to Claude Cowork is expanding.

A pair of announcements from Anthropic today include the word that access to Claude Cowork on mobile and web interfaces has rolled out to all paid accounts, so you can keep an eye on what it’s doing for you in more places.

Separately, the Google Workspace connectors for Claude now support sending emails in Gmail and managing files in Google Drive — more details here.

Screenshot of Claude AI sending an email from a gmail account
Image: Anthropic
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Android’s “advanced” sideloading flow is now live.

Google’s Mishaal Rahman took to r/Android to announce the process, which will eventually be the only way to install apps from unverified Android developers. Verification enforcement kicks in globally in 2027, though in some countries begins next month. Enabling the one-time advanced flow now gets the mandatory 24-hour cooldown out of the way.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Gemini in Chrome has landed on Android.

After starting to roll out to “select devices” in June, Google’s AI Chrome assistant is now available to all Android users in the US. It adds a Gemini icon to the top-right of your toolbar that opens the familiar chatbot window, allowing Gemini to summarize web pages, answer questions, generate images, and more.

The Gemini sparkle icon besides the tab menu on the Chrome toolbar for Android.
You can see the Gemini sparkle icon now sitting beside your tab menu on the Chrome toolbar.
Image: Google
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Spirit in the machine.

Google won a $10 million bankruptcy auction to acquire a hefty collection of business data from the now defunct Spirit Airlines, which it plans to use for AI training. The data, which includes calendar info, documents, spreadsheets, emails, and employee chats will be “deidentified,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to Axios:

“We will not receive any personal information from this dataset. Any data we receive will be rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt.”

Google’s Pet Memory forgot who my cats are

Gemini for Home promises its Nest cameras can recognize my cats by name — but it can’t tell Boone from Smokey.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Google is reportedly stopping Pixel production in China.

Most of Google’s products are still manufactured in the country, but Nikkei Asia reports that all production of Pixel phones, watches and earbuds will leave China starting in 2027. Google started this exodus in 2019, shifting to building production capacity in Vietnam and India instead, as have Apple and Microsoft in recent years.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Google’s people-tracking app is now on Wear OS.

Find Hub on Google-powered smartwatches now includes a separate Find People app. As 9to5Google notes, it’s barebones: it shows a list of everyone you’re sharing location with, but to actually change any settings or see their location on a map, you have to open your phone. Perhaps there’s more to come.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Similarweb says it can track conversational AI ads.

The new AI Ads tracking data set for ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews pulls insights from anonymized web usage data provided by a panel of Similarweb users, instead of relying on synthetic prompts. Similarweb reports that 26 percent of ChatGPT responses and nearly 30 percent of ad-eligible Google AI Mode queries include a sponsored ad.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The new Gemini model is now available in AI Mode for Search.

The newly-announced Gemini 3.7 Flash is rolling out today as an option for AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. The updated model is better at following instructions and “understanding your intent, so you get even more helpful responses,” says Search VP of product Robby Stein.

A promotional image for Gemini 3.7 Flash in Google Search’s AI Mode.
Image: Google