The Android Show Live Blog: Android 16's New Design, Gemini on TV and Wear OS 6

Dieter Bohn shows off the diversity of Android devices.

Google

Dieter Bohn, director of product narrative at Google, is taking some time at the end of the show to show off some other cool Android devices. There's no new information here, but it's an easy rundown for fans and nonfans to see the diversity of phones Android offers. 

Google's Sameer Samat teases glasses-related announcements coming to Google I/O.

Google

Google's Sameer Samat said that Android 16 will begin rolling out to Pixel devices next month and to Samsung devices later in the summer. This moves up Android's typical release schedule. Samat also teases that a glasses-related announcement is coming at Google I/O.

Google shows off Disney-themed tracking tags. 

Google

Google's Find My Device (being rebranded as Find Hub) is Google's answer to Apple AirTag and is getting some Disney-themed tags. 

Google

Scam and theft protection features within Android 16 are being improved as part of a new Find Hub that will expand Google's location tracking network for finding devices.

Google

Gemini will also be coming to Android TV and will be capable of answering quick questions and helping launch streaming apps.

Google

Gemini is coming to cars and will be able to help find locations, summarize text messages or use Gemini Live for conversational questions.

Android Auto being shown working with Gemini AI.

Google

Guemmy Kim, senior director for PM and UX at Android, announces that Gemini AI is coming to your WearOS smartwatch. Here, you can tell your watch to remember certain notes or ask which restaurant your friend told you to make a reservation at. Kim also says Gemini is coming to Android Auto. 

In Android Auto, more work can be done with your voice without having to tap on the screen. You can tell Gemini to reply to your mom, and to do so in Korean, for example. 

Google

During the Gemini demo, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is being used, rather than Google's own Pixel 9 series.

Rohan Shah, senior product manager for Android, calls out "other phones" that simply use AI as a separate app. In Android, Gemini is getting more integrations. You can quickly take actions in apps and summarize PDFs. All you need to do is press the side button and Gemini can look at your screen and summarize what you're seeing. 

Gemini Live is being shown off. This is the ability to use the camera to use visual AI to look at the world around you. 

Google says privacy is important and says sharing can be turned off, and Gemini can be put on hold. 

Google

Wear OS will also get the new Material 3 design language, including stretching shapes. The design will come with WearOS 6, which will also improve battery life for watches that are updating to it.

Google

Mindy Brooks, Google's Android Consumer Product & Experience lead, talks about a new design for Android that's more personal. It's called Material 3. Here are the details:

1. Natural and springy animations via a motion physics system
2. Soft haptic rumble
3. Personality: more colors and "emphasized typography"

Google's Sameer Samat, president of Android Ecosystem, launches the show! He talks about making RCS the standard in Android and iOS. He says there are a billion RCS messages sent daily in the US. 

For this show, he's going to talk about a new expressive design in Android, Gemini and security. 

Google

The Android Show livestream has kicked off on the YouTube channel.

The Acer Chromebook Plus 516.

Matt Elliott/CNET

It's about time. Google is finally looking to bring a desktop mode to Android, similar to Samsung DeX, Android Authority reports. This mode would let you plug your Android phone into a monitor via USB-C and work in a desktop-like environment, likely something that looks like ChromeOS. Android Authority's Mishall Rahman was actually able to get the feature to work with his Pixel device. Rahman says that desktop mode won't launch on Android 16 and might be better suited for Android 17. 

Google I/O 2024 was all about AI, overwhelmingly so.

Google

If you followed along with us during last year's Google I/O event, you probably hit a point wondering when Google would pivot away from AI and move on to… anything else seriously stop saying AI we all want to know about new phones please it's been two hours already. (Spoiler: It did not talk about anything else.)

The presenters used the term "AI" over 120 times during that presentation, and although many specific details were interesting, in the words of CNET's Abrar Al-Heeti, "The lack of hardware announcements made this year's keynote a drag."

It's a given that Gemini and other AI features will figure prominently during the Android Show and next week's Google I/O event. But if the company's only focus is once again AI, it risks blending the particulars into more AI slop. Already we're seeing that most smartphone owners are not interested in AI features (87% of Samsung owners and 73% of iPhone owners, according to a survey by SellCell), so blaring even more will again be a letdown.

What I'd love to see instead is whether last year's lofty AI promises have turned into functional features that anyone can use.

James Martin/CNET

It's likely that Android 16 will be driving the conversation during the Android Show. One thing we know that will be on display will be Google's redesigned user interface for Android, called Material 3. We know this because Google accidentally leaked the blog post. (While the company was quick to take it down, it has been archived.)

Material 3 is an easier and "emotional UX" that moves away from everything looking the same. An expressive use of colors, shapes, sizes and motions draws your attention to what matters most. According to the blog post, Google commissioned 46 separate research studies with 18,000 participants from around the world, using eye tracking, surveys and other experiments to finalize Material 3. Google says participants preferred Material 3 by a wide margin over the iOS Human Interface Guidelines. 

James Martin/CNET

Google Assistant is getting replaced on most phones by Gemini in 2025, but there are a lot of features handled by Assistant that Gemini hasn't yet taken over. I'm hoping Google begins to address these gaps with Tuesday's Android Show, as I constantly use Assistant to control my Nest speakers to play the news and other audio. Other people likely use it for smart home functions like turning on lights and thermostats. While Gemini will eventually be integrated into more Nest devices, I'd like to be sure that Gemini's truly taking over most of Assistant's functionality before we see its retirement.