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Gmail is launching a new Gmail feature that is designed to help users easily manage their subscriptions and declutter their inboxes. The new “Manage subscriptions” tool is rolling out on the web, Android, and iOS in select countries. With the new feature, users can view and manage their subscription emails in one place and quickly unsubscribe from the ones they no longer want to receive. Users can view their active subscriptions, organized by the most frequent senders, alongside the number of emails they’ve sent in the past few weeks. Clicking on a sender provides a direct view of all emails from them. If a user decides to unsubscribe, Gmail will send an unsubscribe request to the sender on their behalf. Users can access the new feature by clicking the navigation bar in the top-left corner of their Gmail inbox and then selecting “Manage subscriptions.” Google says the new feature will begin rolling out on the web starting Tuesday, with Android and iOS users starting to receive it on July 14 and July 21, respectively. It may take up to 15 days from the start of the rollout for the feature to reach every user, the company says.

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Google is announcing some big changes to how Gemini works on flip phones today, starting with Samsung’s all-new Galaxy Z Flip 7. The Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the first flip phone that allows for easy access to Gemini Live from its external screen, complete with support for the multimodal elements of Google’s voice assistant. In addition to basic conversations, Gemini Live on Flip 7 supports camera mode, which, when paired with the phone’s form factor, allows for easy answers without having to flip it open or hold the device in one hand. It’s not a wholly unique idea; this year’s Moto Razr lineup was also big on utilizing a clamshell in tabletop mode for hands-free AI commands, though I’d hazard a guess that Gemini Live integration will outperform Motorola’s in-house AI toolset. But again, this partnership with Samsung’s latest hardware sounds like the launching point for Gemini Live on cover screens — I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature expand to the Razr in the coming weeks and months. Google is also adding support for additional “device apps,” starting with pre-installed Samsung services like Calendar, Notes, and Reminders, before eventually rolling out to other OEMs.

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Google is expanding access to AI Mode, its experimental feature that allows users to ask complex, multipart questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Search. The tech giant is also adding more functionality to the feature, including the ability to pick up where you left off on a search. Now anyone in the U.S. who is at least 18 years old can access the feature if they’re enrolled in Labs, Google’s experimental arm.  Google is also going to make AI Mode accessible outside of Labs, as it’s testing an AI Mode tab in Google Search that will be visible to a small percentage of people in the U.S. As for the new functionality, Google is making it possible to go a step beyond asking detailed questions about places and products. Now you can use AI mode to do things like find a new restaurant or things you need for your next trip. You will now start to see visual place and product cards in AI Mode that you can tap on to get more details. Google is also making it possible to pick up where you left off when using AI Mode, which should be helpful in cases where you’re working on longer-running projects and tasks. On desktop, you can now click the new left-side panel in AI Mode to get to your past searches to see the information you were already given, and to ask follow-up questions.

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Google announced the ability for Gemini to reference your past conversations in February for Gemini Advanced. Today’s “launching soon” tease does suggest it will come to free users as well, just like Saved info. Looking ahead, the future is “personalized context” from the Google services you use: “Gmail, Photos, Calendar, Search, YouTube, etc.”  Google started testing this in March with the “Personalization (experimental)” model. Right now Gemini looks at your past Search history when considering a prompt to see if it can “make the answer better.” Beyond Search, Google at the time teased YouTube and Photos, with the company uniquely positioned to already have this information. On the proactive front, Google wants an assistant that anticipates your needs. Gemini will “offer insights and actions before you ask, freeing your mind and time for what truly matters,” or “Less prompting, more flow.” In terms of powerful, Google says the “best assistant turns your ideas into action.” This is talking about Gemini 2.5 Pro. Notably, Woodward says this “new era of models” will lead to a “new era of user experiences.” A recent example of that is something like Canvas. Meanwhile, the Gemini app lead credits Google’s infrastructure, especially TPUs, as making all this possible. It’s the kind of infra people dream about, but it actually exists here — and it’s going to let us make all this FREE for everyone to try, especially students.

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Google’s ad network has begun showing advertising within the flow of conversations with chatbots — part of Alphabet Inc.’s efforts to keep its edge in digital advertising as generative artificial intelligence takes off. Earlier this year, Google’s AdSense for Search network, which traditionally shows ads within the search results of other websites, expanded to include conversations with chatbots operated by AI startups. Google made the move after conducting tests last year and earlier this year with a handful of startups, including AI search apps iAsk and Liner, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Showing ads alongside its own search results is the heart of Google’s business, bolstered by a business that serves up advertising across much of the web. That empire has come under threat as new entrants like OpenAI and Perplexity AI seek to siphon off the search giant’s audience with products aiming to help users find what they are looking for more quickly. Generative AI startups are increasingly exploring advertising-based business models to offset the high costs of answering users’ questions with artificial intelligence. For example, before inviting users to ask follow-up questions, iAsk shows ads below its AI-generated responses. In addition to Google, startups such as Koah Labs have begun allowing brands to serve ads to the chatbot audience. AI search startup Perplexity, one of the most prominent players using AI to reshape internet services, establishes relationships directly with brands that want to buy ads on the site, according to a person familiar with the matter. Perplexity allows brands to sponsor follow-up questions to users’ queries.

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Google’s ad network has begun showing advertising within the flow of conversations with chatbots — part of Alphabet Inc.’s efforts to keep its edge in digital advertising as generative artificial intelligence takes off. Earlier this year, Google’s AdSense for Search network, which traditionally shows ads within the search results of other websites, expanded to include conversations with chatbots operated by AI startups. Google made the move after conducting tests last year and earlier this year with a handful of startups, including AI search apps iAsk and Liner, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Showing ads alongside its own search results is the heart of Google’s business, bolstered by a business that serves up advertising across much of the web. That empire has come under threat as new entrants like OpenAI and Perplexity AI seek to siphon off the search giant’s audience with products aiming to help users find what they are looking for more quickly. Running experiments with AI startups will allow the company to test the waters for advertising in the relatively new world of AI chats. Generative AI startups are increasingly exploring advertising-based business models to offset the high costs of answering users’ questions with artificial intelligence. For example, before inviting users to ask follow-up questions, iAsk shows ads below its AI-generated responses. In addition to Google, startups such as Koah Labs have begun allowing brands to serve ads to the chatbot audience. AI search startup Perplexity, one of the most prominent players using AI to reshape internet services, establishes relationships directly with brands that want to buy ads on the site, according to a person familiar with the matter. Perplexity allows brands to sponsor follow-up questions to users’ queries.

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Google is providing early access to an updated version of its Gemini 2.5 Pro multimodal AI model. Called Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview, the model has “significantly” improved capabilities for coding, especially for interactive web applications. Google said it released the preview model early due to “overwhelming enthusiasm” for the model “so people can start building.” The model was supposed to be unveiled at Google’s I/O developer conference later this month. The updates include enhancing code transformation, code editing and developing of complex agentic workflows. Google said the updates enabled the model to top the chart in the WebDev Arena Leaderboard, which ranks large language models based on their performance in web development. This ranking measures how well a model can build “aesthetically pleasing and functional” web applications. In the arena, AI models compete with each other in front-end UI design and coding contests to earn ELO points. Google said Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview has surpassed the prior version by 147 ELO points. Gemini 2.5 Pro is in third place, after Claude 3.7 Sonnet. OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 came in fourth and Claude 3.5 Sonnet is fifth. Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview also scored well in video understanding, at 84.8% on the VideoMME benchmark, which assesses the capabilities of multimodal models in how well they analyze videos. On WebDev Arena Leaderboard, a third-party metric that ranks models by human preference based on their ability to generate visually appealing and functional web apps, Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview (05-06) has now overtaken Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet at the number one spot.

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Google offered a brief update on the adoption of the RCS (Rich Communication Services) protocol, an upgrade to SMS that offers high-resolution photos and videos, typing indicators, read receipts, improved group chat, and more. The company shared that the messaging standard now supports over a billion messages per day in the U.S. This metric is based on an average of the last 28 days, Google noted. The stat is notable because Google fought for years to get Apple to adopt support for RCS on iOS, allowing for better communication between Android and Apple devices. Unlike with iMessage, group chats with Android users couldn’t be renamed, nor could people be added or removed, and you couldn’t exit when you wanted. That changed with the fall 2024 launch of iOS 18, when Apple finally added RCS support to its Messages app. Though the functionality has been upgraded, Apple still displays RCS chats as green bubbles, hoping to keep the stigma of being an Android user intact. This is particularly important among young people in the U.S., where demand for the blue bubbles has cemented the iPhone as teens’ most popular device.

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Gemini, Google’s AI-powered chatbot, can now connect to GitHub — for users subscribed to the $20-per-month Gemini Advanced plan, that is. Gemini Advanced customers can directly add a public or private codebase on GitHub to Gemini to allow the chatbot to generate and explain code, debug existing code, and more. Users can connect GitHub to Gemini by clicking the “+” button in the prompt bar, selecting “import code,” and pasting a GitHub URL. A word of warning: AI models, including Google’s, still struggle to code quality software. Code-generating AI tends to introduce security vulnerabilities and errors, owing to weaknesses in areas like the ability to understand programming logic. One recent evaluation of Devin, a popular AI coding tool, found that it could only complete three out of 20 programming tests.

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For the past year or so, opening Google Wallet 3+ minutes after unlocking your phone would result in a “For your security, you need to verify it’s you before paying” message appearing at the top of the app. As such, three minutes from unlock, tap-to-pay transactions don’t work until PIN, pattern, password, fingerprint, face (Class 3 biometric unlock), etc. Recently, Google Wallet has changed or is in the process of testing a new behavior. Now, after three minutes, you cannot even access the app’s homepage with your carousel of cards and list of passes without authentication. Google throws up a splash screen with the Wallet logo up top and system-level “Verify it’s you” sheet to authenticate. Sometimes, we still see the old card prompt at the top instead of the new fullscreen version, but the latter is beginning to appear more frequently. We’re seeing this change with version 25.18 of Google Wallet on both Pixel and Samsung phones. This is quite a security escalation. As our digital wallets contain more and more (including state IDs, passports, home/room and car keys, boarding passes, medical information, etc.), you might not want people with your phone to even know what’s being stored.

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