In short
- In early October 2026 Google released four things that matter for businesses: the Gemini agent, skills replacing Gems, a Mac app that takes meeting notes locally, and Gemini Enterprise querying your data without copying it.
- The common thread: Google is turning Gemini into an agent that takes over work, with its own account, its own permissions and a spend cap.
- Do you need to act now? If your team uses Gems, make a list before they stop for business accounts, no sooner than 1 March 2027.
Google had a busy first half of October. Most of the news was about agents: AI that does not just answer, but carries out tasks itself. Below, for each development: what happened, who it matters to and where to read more. Checked on 11 October 2026.
1. The Gemini agent: one agent for all your work
On 8 October Google Cloud announced the Gemini agent: "a single, universal agent for work". You give it an objective, and it works in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Chat and Calendar, but also in Slack and Microsoft 365. A coworker agent gets its own Workspace account with an email address, calendar and Drive, acts under its own name and leaves everything in a log. Under the hood, Gemini picks a model for each job, from Google's own models and Anthropic's Claude models (Google Cloud).
The agent is still in private preview. There is no date for the wider rollout and no full pricing yet.
Read more: Gemini agent: Google's AI colleague with its own email address
2. Gems are becoming skills
Skills are reusable instructions for recurring tasks. They have been arriving in Workspace since 5 October and in the Gemini app since 13 October. They replace Gems: on Workspace Business and Enterprise accounts you can no longer use those from no sooner than 1 March 2027. Whatever is left then becomes a draft skill that its creator has to activate (Gemini Apps Help).
This is the only item in this overview with a deadline. Take stock of which Gems your team uses and who owns them.
Read more: Gemini Gems are becoming skills: what do you need to do?
3. AI Edge Foresight: meeting notes without the cloud
On 6 October Google released AI Edge Foresight, a free, experimental Mac app that records meetings and fills out your notes. The AI runs on your own Mac, on Google's open Gemma 4 model and the new EmbeddingGemma 2 (Google Developers Blog). That is interesting for sensitive conversations. But it is an experiment: according to Notebookcheck, mainly a showcase for developers (Notebookcheck).
Two caveats. Google does not say whether transcription handles Dutch, and according to heise the app does ask you to share data, while the AI works locally (heise). So test it first with a short conversation that contains nothing sensitive, and ask for consent before recording other people. If you want to take meeting notes with AI today, read AI meeting notes: three ways with ChatGPT.
4. Gemini Enterprise queries data without copying it
On 2 October a preview came out that lets Gemini Enterprise query data directly in BigQuery, Cloud SQL, AlloyDB and Spanner, using each user's own credentials (Google Cloud). So an employee sees through AI only what they are allowed to see anyway. This is mainly relevant if your data already lives in Google Cloud.
Read more: AI news October 2026: what it means for your business
What should you do with this?
| Development | For whom | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini agent | Leadership, IT | Decide on owner, permissions and spend cap before the rollout |
| Gems become skills | Everyone using Gems | Take stock of Gems and choose an owner for each |
| AI Edge Foresight | Anyone meeting on a Mac | Test with a short Dutch conversation, ask for consent |
| Gemini Enterprise on your data | Data and IT | Test only if your data is in Google Cloud |
When can you ignore this?
If your organisation does not use Google Workspace or Gemini, only Foresight affects you, and only if you work on a Mac. Microsoft organisations face something similar: agents there are now billed by usage. See What will Microsoft Copilot cost now that agents are billed by usage?
Want to work out what this news means for your organisation? Book a conversation.
Sources
- Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian, Welcome to Gemini at Work 2026: Introducing the Gemini agent, 8 October 2026.
- Gemini Apps Help, About the transition from Gems to skills, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Google Developers Blog, Bring multimodal semantic search to the edge with EmbeddingGemma 2, 6 October 2026.
- Google Cloud, Release notes, 2 October 2026.
- heise online, Google's macOS app: Local AI to capture notes and work with files, accessed 11 October 2026.
- Notebookcheck, Google AI Edge Foresight: Offline AI for meeting notes on Mac, accessed 11 October 2026.
