Google’s New AI-Powered “information Agents” Can Send You Alerts on Topics That Interest You.
Google’s efforts to transform online search and the way people find information continue, and now, in AI mode, a new feature is available: Information Agents. This new feature will monitor news and notify you when needed. (At least, that’s the idea.)
The update was announced at Google I/O 2026 back in May , but it’s now available to users with a Google AI Ultra subscription (costing $99.99 or $199.99 per month). Google’s Robby Stein says more users will receive the update this summer.
Google didn’t provide further details, but presumably this will roll out to other paid plans in the next few months, and eventually to everyone. I use my Ultra subscription to run these information agents.
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The idea is this: you’re looking for news about, say, the next James Bond movie. Then, the AI mode can monitor the internet and notify you whenever news about casting, release dates, or trailers appears. This saves you from having to search a ton, as the information comes to you automatically (a bit like the old Google Alerts, if you remember those). These updates appear both in the “AI Mode” section of Google Search and in the Google app on your phone. At least, that’s how it ‘s supposed to work.
How My Information Agents Worked (or Didn’t Work)
To set up information agents, go to Google Web Search , then switch to AI mode using the button in the search field. Then, run a search as if you were interacting with Gemini—for example, “Tell me who the main stars are in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film , ‘The Odyssey .'”
After you get an answer, which hopefully isn’t the result of your imagination, you may be asked at the end if you want to set up an information agent to keep you updated on what you searched for. If you’re not asked, you can still submit a request: tell Google to “keep you updated” or something similar.
You’ll receive a confirmation message, and then, whenever new information is posted online, you’ll be notified. Updates appear as notifications in the Google mobile app, as well as as new entries in the original AI mode conversation—so if you delete a chat, you’ll stop receiving updates (you can access your previous chats via the AI mode history button on the left).
Google doesn’t specify how often you’ll receive updates, but in my experience, they were… anything but. I set up an information agent to keep me up to date with the latest World Cup results and group standings, which I thought was a fairly simple task, but my Google app remained stubbornly silent, and the AI chats remained static all day long as goals were being scored and matches were being played.
Judging by the information online, other users have information agents working in AI mode, so it seems this is an isolated issue that will probably be fixed in a few days. Still, it’s annoying when these features start up and then stop working properly. I had this problem with the Gemini Omni, so maybe it’s just me.
What worked was asking the information agents to send me a daily update at a specific time. When I did this, I actually received the latest news about the World Cup and everything that had happened in the tournament over the past 24 hours, both in the Google app and as an update to my conversation with the AI mode.
In fact, this might be a better use case than waiting for updates at random times throughout the day. I can definitely see myself using it for important news topics that interest me and for catching up on information I might otherwise miss, although it doesn’t seem designed for important breaking news.