Gemini Steps Into the Enterprise Agent Era

Google is turning Gemini from an answer machine into a digital coworker that can pursue goals, manage workflows, and keep working across apps and devices. Announced at the “Gemini at Work 2026” event on October 8, 2026, the new Gemini agent is built for complex assignments that can last hours or even days.

The scale behind the launch is already enormous. “Gemini today has over 1 billion monthly active users,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, while nearly 90% of Fortune 100 businesses now use Gemini Enterprise at work. Google is now aiming to make those users part of a workplace where AI does not just respond to a prompt, but helps move an entire project forward.

From Instructions To Objectives

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, explained that the Gemini agent can receive “objectives, not just instructions.” That change gives the system room to plan work, select custom skills and tools, connect to internal systems, and coordinate assignments across multiple applications.

A user can call the agent by tagging it, emailing it, sharing information with it, or adding it to a group chat. The request can include attachments such as files, folders, or other projects designed for specific workstreams, including collections that combine files and skills.

The agent can handle research, document creation, coding, and longer work that stretches beyond a single session. It can also coordinate parallel assignments, respond to scheduled tasks or events, and maintain memory across applications and devices.

That memory system includes four categories: session, semantic, procedural, and episodic memory. Together, these categories support an agent that can carry context from one task to another instead of treating every interaction as a blank slate.

A Coworker With An Identity

Gemini Enterprise can configure the agent as a personal assistant or as a persistent coworker with shared responsibilities. The agent can receive its own Workspace account, email address, calendar, Drive storage, and company-directory presence, giving it a defined identity inside a team.

Google Cloud described a manager creating a Gemini “Event Planner Agent” with its own Workspace account, email address, calendar, Drive storage, and company-directory presence. That agent could manage a workflow over multiple days rather than waiting for a person to restart the project at every step.

The agent can understand team members, time zones, approval needs, calendars, and other workplace context. Its actions are recorded in audit logs, while enterprise security systems manage its permissions and identities through cryptographic attestation.

Those controls also limit what a coworker agent can see. An agent can access only the information explicitly shared with it, rather than receiving the entire set of permissions assigned to a human employee.

Gemini can connect to business data and systems across Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Jira, Confluence, Git, BigQuery, Databricks, Postgres, Snowflake, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Microsoft Teams. Thomas Kurian said the agent operates through a common interface and API that extends across the web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, command-line tools, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack.

Model Choice Moves Into The Workflow

Users can take over and choose which model powers a task, including third-party models starting with Anthropic’s Claude models. Gemini can use Google’s Gemini models and Anthropic’s Claude models today, while Google plans support for additional models.

Google also said it will expand the model picker to include open source models and other private models in the future. That choice gives businesses a way to match different models with different assignments instead of relying on a single system for every workflow.

Early testers included sportswear brand On, Shopify, and PayPal. Gemini Enterprise customers include BNP Paribas, Bradesco, Merck, Orange Spain, Santee Cooper, SOMPO, Ulta Beauty, and Wesfarmers.

Google is also preparing versions for specific industries. Versions built for financial services and legal work are in preview, while versions for government, healthcare, and retail are coming soon.

Google Enters A Crowded Agent Race

The Gemini agent arrives as other technology companies build persistent AI workers. Microsoft introduced an updated Copilot on September 25, 2026, SpaceXAI expanded Grok Bot capabilities on September 28, and OpenAI introduced its Dots agents on September 29. Anthropic announced Claude integration with Google Workspace on October 6.

Google previously launched its consumer-facing Gemini Spark agent in May 2026, and Meta is developing Muse. The new Gemini agent places Google’s strongest focus on enterprise work, where access controls, shared systems, audit logs, and long-running assignments matter as much as the model’s ability to generate text.

That is the central shift: Gemini is designed to work as an individual assistant or as a team member with its own identity, permissions, memory, and responsibilities. If Google’s plan takes hold, the workplace inbox, calendar, documents, databases, and project tools could become one connected operating environment for AI agents.

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