Google I/O 2026 Live Blog: All the Gemini and Smart Glasses Updates as They Happen

At Google I/O 2026, the company announced updates to its Gemini AI suite and Android XR smart glasses, with a notable new "avatar" feature in its Flow creation software that allows users to generate deepfake-style selfies for content creation. The live blog from WIRED noted that while AI is accelerating coding and scientific discovery, the keynote itself remained lengthy, and the fully AI-generated video clips may prove polarizing for audiences due to concerns over authenticity.

Google I/O 2026 Live Blog: All the Gemini and Smart Glasses Updates as They Happen Follow our live coverage of Google’s annual developer keynote, where the company will announce updates to its Gemini suite of AI tools and more details about Android XR smart glasses. Welcome to WIRED’s Google I/O live blog. Several WIRED folks are on the ground in Mountain View, California: Boone Ashworth, Julian Chokkattu, Lauren Goode, Steven Levy, and Reece Rogers. Follow our live updates below. One theme of I/O has been how AI dramatically speeds up the rate of coding, creation, scientific discovery, etc. etc. But at almost 2 hours, they haven't cracked the code to speeding up keynotes. Of all these changes to Flow, Google's AI creation software, the “avatar” feature, where users can essentially create a deepfake selfie of themselves, definitely stands out. “This is for creators who want to bring themselves into their content but don't want to have to shoot themselves,” said Elias Roman, vice president of product management at Google Labs. While creators may be interested in automating aspects of their video creation process, fully AI generated clips will likely be polarizing for audiences and may come across as inauthentic.