Google I/O 2026: Gemini 3.1 Ultra, Android XR Smart Glasses, and AI That Powers Siri

Google’s I/O 2026 conference delivered the company’s most ambitious AI announcements yet, cementing its position as a serious challenger to OpenAI and Anthropic. The centerpiece was Gemini 3.1 Ultra, a model with a 2-million token context window operating natively across text, image, audio, and video without transcription intermediaries.

A sandboxed Code Execution tool ships alongside the model, letting it write and run code mid-conversation — a capability that directly competes with OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude Code.

Perhaps the most significant strategic win was Apple’s decision to officially pick Gemini to power a revamped Siri, reportedly paying $1 billion annually for a custom Gemini model. This marks Apple’s acknowledgment that its in-house AI efforts remain behind the frontier.

Android XR and the Post-Phone Era

Google also previewed Android XR, a new operating system for augmented reality smart glasses, positioning itself for what it believes will be the next major computing platform after smartphones. The smart glasses leverage Gemini’s multimodal capabilities to provide real-time translation, navigation overlay, and contextual information.

The announcement comes as Google’s AI chip efforts intensify. The company is developing new inference-focused AI chips to challenge NVIDIA’s dominance, aiming to reduce dependency on external suppliers for its massive AI workloads.

Privacy remains a key differentiator. Google is emphasizing on-device AI processing, with Gemini Nano models running directly on Android devices without sending data to the cloud.