Google is steadily turning Gemini and Search into places where people can get things done, not just places where they look things up. The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform designed to make it simpler for developers to plug their services into both Gemini and Google Search, while also expanding the roster of partners already available inside its artificial intelligence ecosystem.

The move builds on work Google has been doing for months, weaving Gemini into everyday routines such as generating playlists, placing grocery orders, and handling small tasks through third-party apps. With the new platform, that same capability is being opened up to a much wider pool of developers, and Search is being brought into the fold alongside Gemini rather than being treated as a separate product.

Google wants all your apps under one roof

Google says it has already rolled out more than 50 Connected Apps across Gemini and Search. The catalog spans productivity tools, entertainment services, fitness platforms, and event booking apps, reflecting an ambition to cover the full range of what people actually do on their phones, laptops, and smart displays throughout the day.

Several recognizable names are already live. Adobe, Experian, Localiza, and Peloton are available through Gemini today, and Google plans to bring them to Search in the coming weeks. Calm, the widely used meditation and sleep app, is joining the lineup as well and will be available across both platforms. The mix is telling: a creative software giant, a credit reporting service, a car rental brand, a connected fitness company, and a wellness app have very little in common except that each one sits at the end of a task a user might otherwise have to open a separate app to complete.

The pitch is convenience. Instead of bouncing between apps to find information and then act on it, users could handle more of the process directly through Gemini or Search. Ask about a rental car for a weekend trip and the relevant service can surface availability; ask for a workout plan and a fitness platform can supply the details. Exactly how deep each integration goes will depend on the app and what its developer chooses to support, but consolidating more services in one place could save users a meaningful amount of back-and-forth.

Google is not stopping at simply adding new apps to the list. It is also reworking how developers bring their services to Gemini and Search, a structural change that could pave the way for many more integrations down the line than the current catalog suggests.

One integration to rule them all

Until now, developers who wanted to reach users on both Gemini and Search had to build separate integrations for each platform. That duplication added engineering work, stretched review timelines, and made smaller teams think twice about whether the investment was worth it. The new Connected Apps Platform aims to simplify the process by letting developers build once and then decide whether their app works with Gemini, Search, or both.

There is also a central dashboard where developers can test their integrations, submit them for review, and track performance after launch. That kind of tooling matters more than it might appear at first glance. Discovery, testing, and analytics are often the difference between an integration that ships and one that quietly stalls in a backlog, and giving developers a single place to manage the lifecycle lowers the barrier for teams without dedicated partner engineering resources.

The platform supports both cloud-based services and Android apps, which widens the pool of potential participants considerably. A large share of the apps people use most are mobile-first, and being able to connect an Android app directly means those developers are not forced to stand up a separate cloud backend just to participate. For Google, the payoff is a richer set of capabilities to demonstrate inside Gemini and Search; for developers, it is a new surface where their service can be discovered at the exact moment a user expresses intent.

A long road from voice commands to connected apps

This is not Google's first attempt at stitching third-party services into its core products. Google Assistant once leaned on a system of conversational actions that let users summon outside services by voice, and the company spent years courting developers to build for that ecosystem. The results were mixed: voice-only interactions proved awkward for anything beyond simple queries, and many actions languished with little usage because discovery was poor and the payoff for developers was unclear.

What has changed is the underlying interface. Large language models can hold context, chain multiple steps together, and interpret loosely worded requests in a way that scripted voice commands never could. A user no longer needs to memorize a specific phrase to trigger a specific action; they can describe what they want and let the assistant figure out which connected service should handle it. That shift removes one of the biggest friction points that held back earlier integration efforts, and it explains why Google is willing to invest in a formal platform rather than a loose collection of one-off partnerships.

The competitive backdrop is equally important. OpenAI has been building out an apps ecosystem inside ChatGPT, allowing third-party services to be invoked directly in conversations. Amazon has rebuilt Alexa around generative AI with a similar emphasis on taking actions rather than just answering questions. Apple has been opening up its intelligence features to developers through system-level app intents. Every major platform is converging on the same conclusion: the assistant that can actually complete a task is more valuable than the one that can only describe how to complete it. Google's advantage is the sheer scale of Search distribution, but that advantage only holds if the integrations are deep enough to be useful.

What users and developers can expect

For everyday users, the practical effect is likely to be gradual rather than dramatic. More of the apps already installed on a phone will eventually respond to requests made inside Gemini or Search, and the number of situations where a user has to leave the assistant to finish a job should shrink over time. The experience will vary by category: a fitness integration may surface workout recommendations and class schedules, while a productivity integration may draft, summarize, or file content without a trip to another window.

It is worth setting expectations, though. The platform is launching in preview, with access gradually expanding to more developers and markets over the coming months. Not every app will appear overnight, and the features available through a given integration may differ between Gemini and Search, since the two products present information in different ways and serve different moments of intent. Search tends to capture the beginning of a task, when someone is still figuring out what they need, while Gemini is built for ongoing conversation and multi-step work.

There is a bigger idea underneath all of this. Instead of finding something through Search and then going elsewhere to act on it, users could increasingly do both in one place, with the assistant acting as a layer that routes requests to whichever connected service is best equipped to handle them. As more developers join the platform and the catalog grows beyond the current 50-plus apps, that convenience could become one of the most consequential parts of the Gemini and Search experience, and one of the clearest measures of whether Google can translate its distribution lead into a genuine ecosystem advantage.

Source: Digital Trends News