Google Archives | Digital Watch Observatory

Snap, YouTube and TikTok settle Kentucky school district lawsuit

Snap, YouTube and TikTok have reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought by Kentucky’s Breathitt County School District. The school district alleged that social media platforms contributed to learning disruption, mental health concerns, and additional financial pressures on schools.

Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed. Meta remains a defendant in the case as related litigation continues. The case is one of a broader series of lawsuits involving social media platforms and alleged harms affecting minors and schools.

This follows earlier related cases settled by Snap and TikTok. The companies have faced multiple lawsuits related to alleged harms associated with social media use. In a separate case, a jury awarded damages to a plaintiff in litigation involving Google and Meta. Meta has also recently been ordered to pay $375 million in a separate case brought by New Mexico’s attorney general.

Plaintiffs and state authorities have also called for changes to platform design and online safety measures affecting minors. Additional lawsuits involving social media platforms and youth safety issues remain ongoing in US courts.

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Singapore and Google strengthen collaboration on AI innovation and digital governance

Google and Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information have announced an expanded National AI Partnership designed to accelerate the deployment of frontier AI technologies across the country’s economy and public sector.

The initiative builds on earlier collaboration between Google and Singapore’s digital authorities and aims to support healthcare innovation, scientific research, workforce development, enterprise transformation, and AI governance. Officials said the partnership aligns with Singapore’s National AI Strategy and broader ambitions to position the country as a global AI hub.

A major focus of the collaboration involves healthcare and life sciences. Google DeepMind is exploring AI co-clinician systems with Singapore’s public healthcare sector, examining how AI agents could support doctors and patients throughout medical treatment and decision-making processes.

Google DeepMind will also collaborate with the National Research Foundation to train researchers on agentic AI systems designed to accelerate scientific discovery. Additional partnerships with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research will focus on AI-enabled research and secure cloud-based scientific analysis tools.

The agreement also expands AI deployment in education. Google and Singapore’s Ministry of Education plan to strengthen educator training programmes and integrate AI-powered teaching support tools across schools. Officials said the partnership aims to improve digital learning capabilities while supporting broader AI workforce readiness initiatives.

Singapore and Google additionally announced plans to collaborate on AI safety, governance, and cybersecurity frameworks. A joint initiative involving Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and other agencies is examining how AI agents interact with real-world digital systems and how governance rules should evolve around autonomous AI technologies.

Officials described the partnership as part of a wider effort to deploy frontier AI responsibly while supporting economic growth, public services, and digital transformation.

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Google explores AI-assisted scientific discovery through Gemini for Science

Google has introduced Gemini for Science, a collection of AI tools and experiments designed to support scientific research workflows. The initiative combines capabilities from systems including Co-Scientist, AlphaEvolve, Empirical Research Assistance, and NotebookLM.

According to Google, the AI-based tools are intended to support tasks such as hypothesis generation, literature analysis, and computational research.

Google said three experimental tools will initially be released through Google Labs, focusing on hypothesis generation, computational discovery and literature analysis. The company also announced Science Skills for Google Antigravity, integrating multiple life sciences databases and research tools.

Google said the programme is being developed in collaboration with more than 100 research institutions and scientific organisations. The company also highlighted research partnerships and conference collaborations linked to AI-supported scientific research.

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Google and UNICEF launch AI-focused education partnership

Google and UNICEF have launched a global partnership focused on AI-supported education initiatives and digital learning infrastructure.

The initiative, funded through Google.org, will initially focus on Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Kenya. According to the organisations, the programme will address areas including literacy, numeracy, teacher support, and digital access.

Google said the partnership aims to combine AI tools with UNICEF’s education programmes to support localised digital learning systems. The initiative includes teacher training, educational technology deployment, and AI-supported learning tools.

Several Google AI tools, including Gemini, NotebookLM, and ReadAlong, will support the initiative. UNICEF said the programme is intended to support digital skills, AI literacy, and the integration of AI tools into classrooms.

The organisations also highlighted goals related to digital inclusion and education access in regions facing infrastructure limitations.

UNICEF said annual reports will assess programme implementation and scalability.

Why does it matter?

Governments, international organisations, and technology companies are increasingly positioning AI as a major component of future education systems. Partnerships involving AI-driven learning tools may significantly influence digital literacy, educational access, workforce preparation, and long-term economic development.

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Google launches Gemini 3.5 with advanced agentic AI capabilities

Google has announced Gemini 3.5, a new family of AI models designed to combine frontier-level reasoning with stronger agentic capabilities across consumer, developer and enterprise products.

The company is launching the series with Gemini 3.5 Flash, which it describes as its strongest agentic and coding model so far. Google said the model is built for complex, long-horizon tasks, including multi-step workflows, coding, document analysis and enterprise automation.

According to Google, Gemini 3.5 Flash outperforms Gemini 3.1 Pro on several coding and agentic benchmarks, including Terminal-Bench 2.1, GDPval-AA and MCP Atlas, while also improving multimodal reasoning. The company also claimed the model is significantly faster than other frontier models when measured by output tokens per second.

Google said the model can support agentic workflows through its Antigravity development platform, including the use of collaborative subagents for coding, financial document preparation, data analysis and other complex enterprise tasks. It also highlighted richer multimodal capabilities, including interactive web interfaces, visual reasoning and generative UI experiences.

Gemini 3.5 Flash is available through the Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search, the Gemini API in Google AI Studio, Android Studio, Google Antigravity and Gemini Enterprise products. Google also said Gemini 3.5 Pro is being used internally and is expected to roll out next month.

The announcement also introduced Gemini Spark, a personal AI agent powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash. Google said Spark is designed to run continuously, helping users navigate digital tasks and take action under their direction. It is starting with trusted testers, with a beta planned for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US.

Alongside performance improvements, Google said Gemini 3.5 was developed under its Frontier Safety Framework. The company said it strengthened safeguards related to cybersecurity and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear risks, while adding safety training and interpretability tools intended to reduce harmful outputs and mistaken refusals.

The launch reflects a wider industry shift from conversational AI assistants towards systems that can plan, coordinate and execute tasks across digital environments, with major AI companies increasingly competing on agentic workflows, coding performance, multimodal interaction and enterprise integration.

Why does it matter?

Gemini 3.5 shows how the AI race is moving beyond chatbot performance towards systems that can act across software, workflows and enterprise environments. Faster agentic models could help automate coding, analysis and business operations, but they also raise governance questions around supervision, safety, accountability and how much autonomy users and organisations should give to AI agents.

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Google outlines AI-driven measures against online scams and fraud

Google has outlined new and existing measures to tackle online scams and fraud ahead of the second EMEA Anti-Scams and Fraud Summit, hosted by the Google Safety Engineering Centre in Zurich.

The company said the summit brings together representatives from governments, technology companies, consumer groups and academia to discuss collective responses to increasingly sophisticated scams. Google said its approach combines AI-driven protections across its products with wider cooperation involving industry and public authorities.

Google highlighted the use of AI-powered systems in services including Gmail, Chrome, Search, Ads and Phone by Google. The company said Gmail blocks more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware, while Search filters out hundreds of millions of spam-related pages daily. It also said its systems caught more than 99% of policy-violating ads before they reached users in 2025.

User-facing tools are also part of the company’s anti-scam strategy. Google pointed to Security Checkup, Passkeys, 2-Step Verification, Circle to Search and Google Lens as tools that can help users strengthen account protection and verify suspicious messages or content.

The company also highlighted public awareness and education initiatives, including Be Scam Ready, a game-based programme that uses simulated scam scenarios to help users recognise common tactics. Google said a previous Google.org commitment of $5 million is supporting anti-scam initiatives in Europe and the Middle East, including work by the Internet Society and Oxford Information Labs.

Google also referred to cooperation through the Global Signal Exchange, a threat-intelligence sharing platform for scams and fraud. As a founding partner, Google said it both contributes to and draws from the platform, which now stores more than 1.2 billion signals used to identify and disrupt criminal activity.

The company said it also works with law enforcement agencies, including the UK’s National Crime Agency, and participates in the Industry Accord Against Online Scams and Fraud. Google also pointed to legal actions against scam operations and botnets, including cases involving Lighthouse and BadBox.

Why does it matter?

Online scams are increasingly industrialised, cross-platform and supported by AI-enabled tactics, making them difficult to address through product-level security alone. Google’s approach shows how major technology companies are combining automated detection, user education, threat-intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation to respond to fraud. The wider policy issue is how much responsibility large platforms should bear for detecting and disrupting scams before they reach users.

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Google warns adversaries are industrialising AI-enabled cyberattacks

Google Threat Intelligence Group says cyber adversaries are moving from early AI experimentation towards the industrial-scale use of generative models across malicious workflows.

In a new report, GTIG says it has identified, for the first time, a threat actor using a zero-day exploit that it believes was developed with AI. The criminal actor had planned to use the exploit in a mass exploitation campaign involving a two-factor authentication bypass, but Google said its proactive discovery may have prevented the campaign from going ahead.

The findings describe several uses of AI in cyber operations. Threat actors linked to the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have used AI for vulnerability research, including persona-based prompting, specialised vulnerability datasets and automated analysis of vulnerabilities and proof-of-concept exploits.

Other actors have used AI-assisted coding to support defence evasion, including the development of obfuscation tools, relay infrastructure and malware containing AI-generated decoy logic. Google said these uses show how generative models can accelerate development cycles and make malicious tools harder to detect.

Google also highlights PROMPTSPY, an Android backdoor that uses Gemini API capabilities to interpret device interfaces, generate structured commands, simulate gestures and support more autonomous malware behaviour. The company said it had disabled assets linked to the activity and that no apps containing PROMPTSPY were found on Google Play at the time of its current detection.

AI systems are also becoming direct targets. Google says attackers are compromising AI software dependencies, open-source agent skills, API connectors and AI gateway tools such as LiteLLM. The report warns that such supply-chain attacks could expose API secrets, enable ransomware activity or allow intruders to use internal AI systems for reconnaissance, data theft and deeper network access.

Why does it matter?

Google’s findings suggest that AI-enabled cyber activity is moving beyond basic phishing support or faster research. Generative models are now being used in vulnerability discovery, exploit development, malware obfuscation, autonomous device interaction, information operations and attacks on AI infrastructure itself. That could make some attacks faster, more adaptive and harder to detect, while also turning AI platforms, integrations and supply chains into part of the cyberattack surface.

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Powerful Gemini update turns simple prompts into ready-to-use results

Gemini can now generate downloadable and ready-to-share files directly in chat across a wide range of formats, including PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

The new feature is meant to remove the extra steps that often follow AI-assisted brainstorming, such as copying content into other applications and reformatting it manually. Instead, users can ask Gemini to create a structured file that is already formatted and ready to download or export to Google Drive.

Supported formats include Google Workspace files, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV, LaTeX, TXT, RTF, and Markdown. The company says the feature is now available globally to all Gemini app users.

Possible uses include turning budget plans into spreadsheets, organising rough ideas into structured documents, converting long discussions into concise reports, and generating PDF study guides from uploaded lecture notes.

Why does it matter?

What changes here is not simply that Gemini can create more file types, but that it moves AI one step closer to replacing part of the software workflow itself. Instead of using AI to generate rough text and then finishing the task manually in Word, Excel, or Google Docs, users can now get output in a format that is already structured for immediate use.

That may reduce friction between prompting and execution, making AI more useful in everyday work, study, and administration. In practical terms, the update pushes Gemini further from being just a conversational assistant towards becoming a tool that can produce finished digital outputs people can actually work with.

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Digital identity ecosystems expand as verifiable credentials roll out across India and other regions

Digital identity ecosystems are expanding with Google Wallet, introducing new capabilities to simplify secure identity verification across multiple regions.

The latest update enables users in India to store Aadhaar-based verifiable credentials directly on their devices.

The integration allows individuals to confirm identity or age in everyday scenarios while maintaining strong privacy protections. Features such as selective disclosure ensure that only necessary information is shared, reinforcing a privacy-first approach to digital identity management.

At the same time, digital ID passes based on passport data are being rolled out in Singapore and Brazil. These credentials provide a streamlined way to authenticate identity across both online services and physical environments.

Why does it matter?

Such an expansion by Google reflects a broader push towards interoperable and secure digital identity systems. By aligning with global standards and embedding privacy into design, the initiative aims to support more seamless and trusted digital interactions worldwide.

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AI research collaboration expands as Google plans campus in South Korea

A major step in global AI expansion is underway as Google prepares to establish its first overseas AI campus in Seoul within 2026. The initiative reflects a broader effort to deepen collaboration between global technology firms and regional innovation ecosystems.

The project is being developed in coordination with Google DeepMind and institutions in South Korea, with a dedicated research team expected to support joint development. Around ten specialists will lead technical cooperation, strengthening links between academia, startups and industry.

A central pillar of this collaboration is the K-Moonshot Project, which applies AI to challenges in biotechnology, climate and energy. Alongside this, an agreement with the Ministry of Science and ICT aims to enhance research capabilities and develop specialised human capital in advanced technologies.

The initiative highlights a growing convergence between national innovation strategies and global AI leadership, signalling a shift towards more distributed and collaborative research infrastructures across regions.

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