Gemini

Google is moving to add "xhigh" to the setting that controls reasoning depth (thinking level) in its developer-facing Gemini API, according to changes in its official SDKs (software development kits). The values are ordered minimal, low, medium, high and xhigh, and xhigh appears to be a level above "high," the deepest so far. The addition also appeared in release notes for the official Python, JavaScript and Java SDKs dated Nov. 10. Google has not announced it on its official blog or official X accounts, so the information remains an unannounced leak. Supported models, pricing and whether the value can actually be called have not been disclosed.

Google said on Nov. 9 that developers can now build apps using its mapping service "Google Maps Platform" inside "Google AI Studio," its service for developers who build apps with AI. When a user describes the app they want in text, AI Studio handles the map setup and prepares the API key, and an interactive map appears in the preview. The prototyping "Maps Demo Key" can be used without a credit card but is limited to 100 calls per API per day, and some APIs are excluded. Production use or more calls require linking a Google Cloud billing account, with standard charges applying. The announcement did not state pricing amounts.

Google has released "Gemini Decision" (gemini-decision-1), a model that returns only probabilities for yes/no judgments, choices among options and graded scoring, along with its dedicated "Decisions API." The Gemini API changelog marks it "Released" in an entry dated Nov. 11, and it is also listed in the official model list. Because it does not generate text, output tokens are always zero; on the paid tier it costs $0.10 per million input tokens, and it is free on the free tier. A single request can judge up to 1,000 questions, with an input limit of 262,144 tokens. It is offered only on v1beta of the Gemini Developer API. Proposed changes to four official SDKs found the previous day were also all merged early on Nov. 12 Japan time.

Google and Adobe on Nov. 10 U.S. time announced an expanded partnership at Adobe's "Adobe MAX" event. Adobe's creative and productivity tools will extend into Google products, and Google's AI models into Adobe's apps. The PDF editor "Acrobat" will become available in Google Workspace, with an entry point that opens it from file previews in Google Drive and Gmail. Acrobat and other tools will be added to Adobe's connectors in Gemini and Gemini Enterprise, and Adobe's tools will also come to Google Search's "AI Mode." Google's latest image and video models will be used in Firefly, Photoshop, Premiere and Adobe Express, and Gemini models in Acrobat's AI features. Neither company gave specific launch dates, and an image model for Photoshop with Google DeepMind is at the exploration stage.

Google is moving to add a "Decisions API" to its developer-facing "Gemini API" that returns only the answers to selection and judgment questions. On Nov. 11, proposed changes (pull requests) adding `client.decisions.create` were posted to the GitHub repositories of 4 official SDKs (software development kits). There are 3 question types: noul, which asks whether something is true or false; choice, which picks one option from a list; and score, which rates on a scale. The proposed changes have not been merged, Google has not announced the feature, and it does not appear in the official documentation. Pricing, supported models and timing are unknown.

An unannounced setting, "proactiveVideo," has been found in the public specification of Google's "Gemini API" for developers. The detection bot @aitrackerbot reported it on Nov. 6 (Nov. 7 Japan time), and ORIENS confirmed the field and its description in the public specification. The description says generation may start for each image received and that costs can increase significantly. Google has not announced it, and it does not appear in the official documentation or SDKs. ORIENS has not tested how it works, and the supported models, pricing and release timing are unknown.

Reports spread on X on Nov. 5 that "Gemini 4 Flash," an unannounced Google model, was being A/B tested under the code name "Hydrogen" in the developer environment "Google AI Studio" and on the comparison site "Arena." The reports came from posts by the leaker @Haleeeemahh and others, and none of them offered evidence for the name, its link to Hydrogen or the testing. Google has made no announcement, and the model was not in the official model list as of that day.

Google on Oct. 30 made "computer use," a developer feature in which AI looks at the screen and clicks and types, generally available in the Gemini API. General availability came 388 days after the first preview in October 2025, with no breaking changes from the preview. It can be used to operate browsers, Android smartphones and computers, with no extra fee beyond the model's standard token pricing. Pricing for the recommended "Gemini 3.8 Flash" rises from $0.75 to $1.50 for input in January 2027. On screen-control evaluations, Anthropic's "Claude Opus 5.5" ranks first even in the table Google published.

Google's AI app "Gemini" on Oct. 29 began letting users share their "avatar," a digital double that records their face and voice, with friends. People it is shared with can call up the avatar in their prompts to make it appear in images and videos. The company said it keeps the person and voice consistent. Users can change who it is shared with and for how long at any time. It is unclear whether the feature is available in Japan; it is not available in Europe or Britain and supports only English.

Google on Oct. 29 made it possible to create documents, PDFs, slides, spreadsheets and code files in its AI app "Gemini," and to edit them while viewing them in the chat. Users can expand a file to full screen and rewrite it themselves, or select part of it and have the AI revise it. The feature is available to all users in all languages Gemini supports. However, everything except PDFs works only in the web version.

The app for Google's AI "Gemini" said on X on Oct. 27 that users can find out whether an image, video or audio file was made with Google's AI by providing the file and asking whether it was made with AI. It looks for "SynthID," an invisible mark Google embeds in the output of its own AI. It can identify only content made with Google's AI and cannot judge content made with other companies' AI.

Google on Oct. 27 unveiled "Genie 4," an AI that instantly creates 3D worlds users can walk around and interact with from text or images. Unlike the previous generation, it also generates ambient sound, music and dialogue at the same time. The AI model "Gemini" breaks goals into steps and advances events in the world in order. It is available first to a limited group of testers, with early access through the paid Google AI Ultra plan and the Gemini API coming "soon." Google also acknowledged weaknesses, such as objects' shapes and positions drifting when it runs for a long time.

Google on Oct. 26 released "Gemini API CLI," a command-line tool for calling the Gemini API from AI agents and scripts, as an open-source beta. Agents from other companies, such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, can request image, video, speech and music generation, or the reading of PDFs and videos, with a one-line command. It is separate from "Gemini CLI," the interactive coding agent, and is not its successor. Because it is in beta, compatibility may break even in minor version updates.

A rumor spread on Oct. 25 that Google's next lightweight model, "Gemini 4 Flash," will be released as a "router" that assigns the model to use depending on the query. The name "gemini-3.8-flash-router" has been present for several days in internal data of "Antigravity," the company's AI coding tool, according to the rumor. There are also reports that it is being tested with some users. All of this comes from posts by individuals, and Google has not made any announcement.

Google on Oct. 22 enabled the app of its conversational AI "Gemini" to draw on searches and saved places in Google Maps. Combining them with events in Google Calendar, it suggests places such as shops users can stop by in their free time. Users choose whether to connect the services themselves, and the connection is off by default. It is available to personal accounts of users 18 and older and cannot be used with work or school accounts. Google has not released figures showing the accuracy of its suggestions.

Google on Oct. 16 (Oct. 17 Japan time) made its AI model "Gemini 4 Argon" available in the Build and Playground sections of its development environment "Google AI Studio" to subscribers of "Google AI Pro," its $19.99-a-month individual plan. When the model became generally available on Oct. 13, AI Studio access was limited to subscribers of the $99.99-a-month "Ultra" plan and pay-as-you-go API users. However, Google has not disclosed how much Pro subscribers can use, and usage beyond the allowance is charged at API rates. Those rates rise to $4 for input and $20 for output in December. On Oct. 28, Google also announced its successor, "Gemini 4 Carbon."

Google on Oct. 30 (Oct. 31 Japan time) released the October edition of "Gemini Drops," a roundup of new features in its conversational AI app "Gemini." The 11 features include a Windows app, "skills" that save and recall frequently used instructions, and launching the development environment "Antigravity" from the Mac app, and 7 of them are available in Japan. Most had already been announced individually in September and October, and ChatGPT and Claude had previously offered the Windows app's shortcut and skills. The Gemini app has surpassed 1 billion monthly users.