t Google I/O on Tuesday, we'll learn where Gemini and Google's AI devices go next, and I have to admit that one announcement is my most anticipated AI product of 2026.

Google's biggest event of the year kicks off at 10:00 am PT at Shoreline Amphitheatre, right next to the Google campus in Mountain View. The Deep View’s Sabrina Ortiz and I will be on the ground at I/O to evaluate everything Google unveils and talk to the teams working on the products to unpack the details.

You can tune into the two-hour livestream on YouTube, and you can also follow my updates and commentary in real-time on X/Twitter at x.com/jasonhiner.

These are the most important developments to track:

• Gemini 4: We’ve all recently learned about Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, new models that claim to be so powerful that they aren’t yet ready to be released to the broader public. If Google is ready to match those capabilities, then I/O is the perfect time to unveil its latest model and share the company’s vision for the future of the technology, especially the balance between advanced capabilities and safety.
• Nano Banana: When Google released its Nano Banana image model in 2025, the realism of its images made every other AI imaging tool look pedestrian. However, OpenAI recently caught up with its new image model. In fact, generating images in ChatGPT is often faster and higher-quality for many queries now. Let's see if Google has its next upgrade ready.
• Agents and coding tools: The past six months in the AI space have been dominated by the rapid advance of coding tools and AI agents, led by projects such as Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, Perplexity’s Personal Computer, and, of course, OpenClaw and its spinoffs. Google has rarely been part of the conversation on agents or coding tools. Will it seek to change that at I/O?
• Project Aura: Done in partnership between Google and XREAL, think of Project Aura as spatial computing like Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, but in a much smaller form factor that’s closer to a pair of very thick-framed glasses. Clearly, spatial computing has not been popular with the masses, and I don’t expect this product to change that. But it might offer a glimpse of the capabilities tomorrow’s smart glasses could have once the technologies shrink over time.
• Google AI glasses: Last year at I/O, Google wowed the tech world with its demo of AI glasses with a built-in display. That demo came across as far more functional and useful than the eventual competitor Meta launched last fall, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. A lot of that is because Google also has Android and can do much deeper integrations with features like maps, language translation, notifications, and the camera app. And Google’s partnership with affordable glasses brand Warby Parker offers hope that it could deliver the product at a competitive price.

Our Deeper View

Of all the announcements we’re expecting at Google I/O 2026, the AI glasses are by far the one that I’m most intrigued by. In fact, it’s the AI product I’ve been anticipating the most so far in 2026. The possibility of having a highly functional audio chatbot always at the ready is very interesting. Of course, before making it a daily tool, I would need to understand and trust how Google handles privacy. That's the same for most people I know. The other I/O announcement I’m watching closely is Google’s strategy for agents. We’re seeing a lot of red flags being raised about today’s agents, and Google still has an opportunity to make agents easier and safer to deploy and use. Meanwhile, the whole ecosystem could benefit from another safe, sober approach to agents.