Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- Tech Advisor reports Google Gemini is receiving a major upgrade codenamed ‘bonobo’ that enables screen automation and third-party app control.
- This agentic AI feature could allow Gemini to perform tasks like ordering Uber rides directly from smartphones on users’ behalf.
- Google warns users to supervise Gemini’s actions due to potential mistakes and privacy concerns regarding screenshot scanning by trained reviewers.
Google’s Gemini AI assistant is set for a huge upgrade in its basic capabilities, as recently discovered code reveals.
Android Authority has discovered evidence of a new, more self-sufficient Google Gemini AI assistant in the latest beta version of the Google app. There are references to a new feature codenamed “bonobo” in the code, which seems to relate to “screen automation”.
This will seemingly relate to Gemini being able to place orders on your behalf using third party apps such as Uber or Lyft. Yes, at some point in the presumably-not-too-distant future, your smartphone – via Gemini – will be able to call you a cab.
Also noteworthy here are some of the security concerns wrapped up in this new screen automation feature. Google is inserting disclaimers that urge users to supervise what Gemini is doing on their behalf, while the phrase “Gemini can make mistakes” has also been discovered.
Not exactly what you want to hear when you’re relying on your phone to get you to an appointment on time. Or to order you dinner, which was the place my mind immediately went to when I read the article.
While we’re on the subject of faintly alarming disclaimers, the website also discovered the news that Google will use “trained reviewers” to scan screenshots taken from your phone “if Keep Activity is on”.
Given that you’re also being urged not to enter any sensitive information or payment details here, it does rather raise some pressing questions about the implications of handing over even basic tasks to your phone.
Google first hinted that its Google assistant was heading in this so-called ‘agentic’ direction back at Google I/O 2025. Project Astra, as it has been dubbed (see above video), is to be able to essentially take control of your phone for you in order to automate basic tasks.
It seems we’re now starting to see the first glimpses of this major Gemini upgrade coming to fruition, though we don’t yet have a timeline on when they’ll be ready for public use.
