Google Launches Gemini Spark, an AI Agent That Works While You Sleep

Google's annual developer conference this week was, from start to finish, about one idea: AI that acts, not just answers. Every major product announcement, from Gmail to Search to a new shopping cart feature, was built around the same concept. You give the AI access to your digital life, and it handles tasks on your behalf. The centerpiece was Gemini Spark. It is a 24/7 agent that runs in the cloud, meaning it keeps working even when you have closed your laptop or put down your phone. It connects to Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar, and a growing list of third-party tools including Canva and OpenTable. Google gave examples like automatically scanning monthly bank statements for hidden fees, monitoring a school inbox for deadline notices, and drafting status update emails by pulling data from your documents and spreadsheets. This is not a chatbot you ask questions. It is a system that watches, decides, and acts. Google has said it will ask permission before taking what it calls sensitive actions, like sending an email on your behalf. But the app's own documentation notes it may share your information or make purchases without asking every time. Supervision is required. The data trade-off here is real. Spark needs access to emails, documents, calendar entries, and connected accounts to do anything useful. Google's own privacy terms state that data shared through agentic features can be passed to third-party apps under their own privacy policies. This is not a hypothetical concern. Disconnecting an app does not automatically delete what Gemini has already stored from it. For business operators, the relevant question is not whether this technology is impressive. It is whether you want an always-on AI system reading your company communications and acting on them. Organisations that use Google Workspace at scale should think carefully before rolling this out to employees without a clear policy on what data Spark can access. On pricing: Google introduced a new $100 per month subscription that includes Spark access, and cut its top-tier plan from $250 to $200 per month. The base Pro plan remains at $20 per month but does not include Spark. Gemini now has 900 million monthly users across 230 countries, up from 400 million a year ago. That growth is why the pricing structure matters: Google is building toward a world where the agent tier is the product. OpenAI has its own agent product, Anthropic has Claude Cowork, and Microsoft has Copilot agents built into Windows and Office. Google's advantage is distribution. Billions of people already use Gmail and Google Calendar. Spark does not need to convince you to switch tools. It plugs into what you already have. The honest assessment is this: the features are genuinely useful for individuals and small businesses managing high volumes of communication. The risks are real for anyone handling sensitive client information, financial data, or confidential business correspondence. The two things are both true at the same time, and neither cancels out the other.