Google's I/O 2026 brought Gemini Spark, a background agent automating tasks across Gmail and third-party apps, alongside a new $100/month Ultra subscription tier.
Google shipped its most ambitious Gemini update at I/O 2026: a persistent background agent, a restructured subscription ladder, and a top tier priced at $100 per month. The headline addition is Gemini Spark, which keeps running tasks after you lock your phone.
Spark can scan credit card statements for forgotten subscriptions, condense school email threads into daily digests, convert meeting notes into Google Docs, and draft follow-up messages without requiring the user to stay in the app. It hooks into Gmail, Docs, Slides, Canva, OpenTable, and Instacart, with additional integrations expected by late summer. Techlicious reports that Google built an explicit authorization step into the design: Spark must request permission before spending money or sending an email on the user's behalf.
For now, Spark launches as a beta next week, available exclusively to US subscribers on the new Google AI Ultra plan at $100 a month. No other plan includes it at launch.
A second new feature, Daily Brief, has a broader rollout. It compiles urgent emails, calendar events, and suggested next steps into a morning digest that learns from thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback. Daily Brief is going live immediately for all paid US subscribers, covering the cheaper Plus and Pro tiers as well as Ultra.
The new pricing structure
Google reworked its subscription tiers at I/O, replacing older branding with a three-level stack topped by Ultra. The reorganization separates casual users from professionals seeking automation and helps justify the compute costs that persistent background tasks require.
Those costs are already generating friction. Android Authority reported this week that Google replaced a fixed prompt quota with a credit-style system that weighs prompt complexity, feature type, and conversation length. Under Google AI Pro, the allowance resets every five hours against a broader weekly cap. One subscriber posted video showing a single failed avatar-based video generation prompt wiped out his entire five-hour limit in under four minutes, before the task even finished. Josh Woodward, Google's Gemini lead, replied on X: "Yikes, let us take a look!"
The credit model is not inherently unreasonable. Generative video consumes far more compute than text, and tiered limits exist to keep a minority of high-demand workloads from degrading service for everyone. But the rollout has clearly miscalibrated something: Pro subscribers are finding that a few minutes with a premium feature can exhaust a multi-hour window, and that tension will sharpen once Spark, running continuously in the background, goes live on Ultra.
Context and implications
Persistent agents are now the front line of competition across the artificial intelligence industry. Every major provider is trying to move past the chatbot model toward software that takes real-world action autonomously. Forbes noted earlier this year that ChatGPT has reached 800 million monthly active users, giving OpenAI the scale to push higher-margin plans, a position Google is now working to replicate. Digital Watch Observatory has tracked how monetization pressure is reshaping the industry, with subscriptions racing against advertising as the dominant revenue path for AI providers.
Google is betting that enough professionals will pay $100 a month for an AI that acts rather than simply answers. Whether that holds depends on execution: if Spark reliably saves hours of administrative work per week, the price looks defensible. If usage caps keep evicting users mid-task before Spark has even exited beta, Google's credibility on the promise of ambient artificial intelligence will take an early hit.
The real test is not whether Spark is technically impressive. It is whether Google can deliver consistent compute access at a price point its own subscribers actually trust.
FAQ
Q: What is Gemini Spark?
A: A new AI agent inside the Gemini app that runs in the background, even when the phone is locked, handling tasks like email summarization, document creation, and scheduling across Google and third-party apps.
Q: How much does Google AI Ultra cost, and what does it include?
A: $100 per month. It is the only plan that includes access to the Gemini Spark beta at launch. Lower tiers, Plus and Pro, get Daily Brief but not Spark.
Q: Why are some Gemini users hitting usage limits so fast?
A: Google switched from a fixed prompt quota to a credit-based system that charges more for compute-heavy tasks. Under Google AI Pro, one user exhausted a five-hour allowance with a single failed video generation prompt.
Q: What is the Gemini Daily Brief?
A: A morning digest that pulls together urgent emails, upcoming calendar events, and suggested next steps. Available now to all paid US subscribers, it improves over time through thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback.