Google is pitching an AI agent ecosystem to consumers who may not buy it

One of the most promising introductions at Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday was a new way for consumers to use the web: AI agents. Unfortunately, it was also the most confusing.

Google took the wraps off information agents, a reinvention of the aging Google Alerts service, now infused with AI. These AI agents are designed to operate in the background, 24/7, helping users stay up to date on topics they’re interested in, like market trends, price tracking, or inclement weather warnings.

Then there is Google Spark, a “personal” AI agent that can help you navigate your digital life by integrating with Google products, like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Workspace. The company says the assistant can handle everyday tasks like surfacing themes from newsletters, organizing your home inventory and keeping track of what needs restocking, or helping you plan and manage a group trip with friends.

Or, as Google showed off in a very engineering-minded example, you could use it to organize a neighborhood block party — as if that would require any management beyond a group chat or some emails.

There’s also a name for how you track notifications from Spark: Android Halo. (Why an Android feature needs its own brand is beyond me, but a good guess is that Google’s internal product teams are fairly competitive and want to highlight their own work, even at the risk of confusing users.)

Next, Gemini’s app is getting an AI agent that can compile a personalized digest from your Gmail inbox, calendar, and tasks, and provide an update called Daily Brief.

Many of these products have not yet shipped, or at least won’t be available to the wider public right away. Instead, Google is targeting its heavier users for now: the “AI-pilled” subscribers of its new, only $100-per-month Gemini Ultra plan. 

Google Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S. will get to use Information agents starting this summer, and Spark will be available to Ultra subscribers “soon.” Halo will ship to Android users “later this year.” Daily Brief is rolling out in the U.S. to Ultra, Pro, and Plus subscribers.

As a result of all these launches, we’ll soon have so many entry points for using AI agents that it may be overwhelming as to where to start.  (Did I forget to mention the increasingly agentic Chrome web browser, too? Google showed off how you could talk to Chrome while shopping for cars online to configure the various options and trim levels you can afford without tapping on a keyboard and clicking around. Yay…I guess?)

In a press briefing ahead of I/O, Google said it intends to bring its agentic features, including Spark, to free users “when the time is right.” But for the time being, the company’s more interested in iterating with a group of people, like the Ultra subscribers, who will push the limits of what Spark and AI agents can do.

In the meantime, Google is furthering the divide between those who have already bought into (literally!) the promise of AI, and the average consumer using Google’s free tools, who’s likely distanced from the real-world improvements AI offers, like agentic coding or AI-enabled computer use. 

Instead, consumers today largely think of AI as chatbots replacing traditional Google searches. They think of AI photo and video models not as impressive creative leaps, but as tools for making “AI slop” that now clutters their social feeds, and result in unwanted data centers being built in their backyards.

Google didn’t help its reputation on this front during the event, flashing goofy AI imagery between each presenter. It also played a corny AI-generated animation featuring Cinnamon Toast Crunch-esque talking Tensor chips. And in its Android glasses demo, Google showed how the devices — which will later support photo-taking — could use AI to transform photos users take into something else.

This demo involved the presenter taking a picture of their view of the audience, which was modified to have a blimp floating overhead, and then sent to their Android Watch. Okay, neat, but is it worth someone’s home being torn down via eminent domain to build new power lines for a data center?

People will need more than clever party tricks to accept such drastic societal changes.

In previous years, Google introduced new consumer electronics devices, like Pixel phones and Nest Hubs, alongside new Android features, like that restaurant-and-salon booking service that blew people away in 2018. Those pieces of technology were framed as attempts to smooth over some of life’s everyday hassles.

Now, the tech giant is showcasing its new models (but not Gemini Pro 3.5, which wasn’t ready yet) alongside its developer platforms, and largely forgetting about who it’s building all this for: Regular folks. People who don’t want to think about whether it’s called Gemini or Spark or Halo or information agents, or where you go to use it.

These people have real problems they want to solve. They struggle to pay bills and rent, or buy gas or groceries, as they try to find work in the face of AI recruiting systems that reject their resumes over small technical details. They are people who are trying to balance stressful lives that have, of late, come to bear technology’s advances as burdens, especially with social media devouring screen time, addicting children, and turning social connection tools into a big, online shopping mall.

Instead of tools to solve problems, the average tech-savvy consumer watching this year’s Google I/O saw a tech giant putting more AI into everything they use — from Docs and email inboxes to glasses and even Search, which is now more of an AI-first experience.

If Google had tapped real consumer sentiment, it could have noted that AI agents would lower screen time usage. That is, instead of spending time researching, organizing, tracking, and monitoring information and news, agents could take over those daily tasks so users could go offline and live their real lives away from a computer.

That’s a message that could resonate with consumers, particularly young people, who are today embracing nostalgic retro tech, adopting “old people” hobbies and crafts to de-stress, and rediscovering the power of real-life connections by ditching dating apps for in-person events and experiences.

In short, Google failed to sell just how cool AI agents are by not demonstrating any problems agents solve for everyday users, and keeping these tools paywalled, limiting their reach.

Meanwhile, messaging-first AI startups like Poke, Poppy, RPLY, and Wingman are presenting themselves as a way to interact more naturally with AI agents via a feature everyone uses daily: text messaging.

Will you ever be able to message Spark? Reps at Google I/O vaguely said it will happen at some point in the future.

This is such a different strategy from Google’s early days, when it introduced revolutionary products like Gmail, a free email service that vastly improved on existing options, or Google Search itself, which freely organized the early web and made it more accessible to everyone.

Google I/O could have been a breakout moment when AI agents became available to everyone via a simple, free consumer product (with one brand name!). This product may even have people clamoring for the way they used to beg for Gmail invites. Instead, Google’s new AI agents — tools that can work for us and meet our personalized needs — remain largely out of reach for most.