Google has woven AI, powered by Gemini, into many of its core products such as Search, Gmail, Docs, and Calendar. While the features can be helpful, users who prefer to limit AI can adjust their settings to disable most of the smart capabilities. By navigating the Gmail settings and the Google Labs experiment, users can turn off Workspace smart features, reduce AI Overviews, and apply simple tricks like adding "-ai" to search queries. These steps allow a more traditional experience without permanently removing the ability to re‑enable the features later. Read more →

A new consumer‑AI report from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) charts the latest competitive landscape. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the market leader, Google’s Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM and Google Labs have entered the top rankings. Meta AI and xAI’s Grok are also gaining ground, with Grok reporting roughly 20 million monthly active users and a recent 40 percent surge after its latest version. Chinese AI products continue to dominate traffic in their home market, and a wave of newcomers is reshaping the mobile app list as platforms crack down on copycat services. Read more →

Google announced that its AI‑powered coding assistant Jules has moved out of beta and is now generally available. Built on Gemini 2.5 Pro, Jules operates as an asynchronous, agent‑based tool that integrates with GitHub, clones repositories to Google Cloud virtual machines, and lets developers offload coding tasks while they focus on higher‑level work. The rollout introduces tiered pricing, a free introductory plan, and clearer privacy language. Google cites strong stability improvements, extensive user feedback, and millions of visits during the beta as reasons for the broader launch. Read more →