Google appears to be readying a substantial upgrade to its Gemini agent stack, with fresh build references pointing to a dedicated Agent Mode that will live as its own tab inside the Gemini app rather than sitting as a tool option inside the prompt bar. The new surface is built for tasks and workflows that go beyond a single chat turn, and the latest signals confirm earlier predictions that scheduled actions and skills would be folded directly into the agent experience.
Additional Image of agents that were cutoff: pic.twitter.com/6dgSqKsSHP
— Luke Litowitz (@Luke_litowitz) May 6, 2026
The leaked screenshots include sample prompts that hint at the kinds of jobs Google wants this agent to own. Among them:
- Triaging and decluttering an inbox
- Preparing for meetings and generating slide decks
- Composing personalized news digests
- Working as a long-form ghostwriter
- Tracking recurring bills and more!
Skills, in this context, look closer to reusable procedural recipes the agent can pick up to handle specific multi-step jobs, while scheduled actions give it a way to run those routines on a cadence. Together, they point to a product aimed at knowledge workers, students, and anyone trying to offload repetitive Workspace and research chores to the cloud.
Strategically, this puts Gemini on a very similar trajectory to Microsoft's Copilot Tasks, which already separates Auto, Researcher, and Analyst-style modes from the chat thread and leans heavily on connectors, scheduling, and file generation. Google is clearly trying to close the gap on ambient, always-running assistance, and pairing that with its Workspace footprint, deep research stack, and Canvas could give the agent a credible foundation. The open question is whether Google plans to leapfrog rivals or simply match them; based on what is visible so far, the company looks set on parity rather than a category-defining move.
Where this lands in the broader product story should become clearer at Google I/O on May 19 and 20, where Agent Mode, skills, and the wider Gemini app refresh are all plausible candidates for the keynote.
