Google’s Gemini AI is getting what could prove to be a very big upgrade: To help answers from Gemini be more personalized, the company is going to let you connect the chatbot to Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and your YouTube history to provide what Google is calling “Personal Intelligence.”
This isn’t the first time Google has introduced some form of personalization with its AI chatbot; in September 2023, when Gemini was still called Bard, Google announced a way for it to connect to Google’s apps and services to be able to retrieve information based on what’s stored in your account. Gemini can also already recall past conversations. But the big change with Personal Intelligence is that it can reason across the information from your Google account, meaning it’s able to pull details from things like an email or a photo without requiring you to specifically ask to pull from the apps you might want the information from. It’s also powered by Google’s Gemini 3 AI models.
Here’s an example that Google’s Josh Woodward, VP of the Gemini app, Google Labs, and AI Studio, shared in a blog post about how Personal Intelligence can work. Google also put together a similar example in a video that I’ve embedded below:
For example, we needed new tires for our 2019 Honda minivan two weeks ago. Standing in line at the shop, I realized I didn’t know the tire size. I asked Gemini. These days any chatbot can find these tire specs, but Gemini went further. It suggested different options: one for daily driving and another for all-weather conditions, referencing our family road trips to Oklahoma found in Google Photos. It then neatly pulled ratings and prices for each. As I got to the counter, I needed our license plate. Instead of searching for it or losing my spot in line to walk back to the parking lot, I asked Gemini. It pulled the seven-digit number from a picture in Photos and also helped me identify the van’s specific trim by searching Gmail. Just like that, we were set.
Woodward warns that while Google has tested Personal Intelligence “extensively” to “minimize mistakes,” users might run into “inaccurate responses or ‘over-personalization,’ where the model makes connections between unrelated topics.” It might also have problems with “timing or nuance, particularly regarding relationship changes, like divorces, or your various interests.” Google is working on fixing these issues.
Personal Intelligence is an opt-in feature, and if you turn it on, you get to decide which apps to connect to Gemini. Woodward says Google has “guardrails” for “sensitive topics,” and adds that Gemini “aims to avoid making proactive assumptions about sensitive data like your health, though it will discuss this data with you if you ask.” Woodward also notes that Gemini “doesn’t train directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library,” though Gemini does train on “limited info” such as “specific prompts in Gemini and the model’s responses.”
Google is launching Personal Intelligence first as a beta, and only in the US, to “eligible” Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers and only for personal Google accounts, Woodward says. In the future, the company plans to bring Personal Intelligence to more countries and Gemini’s free tier. It will come to AI Mode in Search “soon.”