16 Google AI tips for stress-free holiday hosting in 2025

Simplify the cooking process

8. Rely on Gemini for Home as your right-hand helper

Gemini for Home replaces Google Assistant on your smart displays and speakers and also upgrades devices in your home like your cameras and doorbells. There are plenty of ways to use it for holiday hosting. Just say “Hey Google,” then ask Gemini to add ingredients for a cozy appetizer to your shopping list or set timers as you get to work in the kitchen. (You can even do this with your Pixel Watch 4 using its Raise to Talk feature if your hands are full.) And if you want to have an even more free-flowing conversation while you cook, you can say, “Hey Google, let’s chat,” to talk to Gemini Live.

9. Get quick visual cooking help from Google Lens

With Google Lens, you can take a photo of ingredients sitting in front of you and ask your question out loud. For example, you can take a photo of your onions and ask “exactly what kind of onions are these and what’s the best way to cook them?”

10. Use Gemini to navigate dietary restrictions

To make sure your guests don’t leave hungry, ask your Gem for help finding recipes everyone can enjoy based on dietary restrictions. Or try double-checking with Gemini Live that a specific ingredient really is gluten-free before you start whisking!

Enjoy the party with your guests

11. Solve party emergencies with AI Overviews

Spills don’t have to be a disaster: AI Overviews in Search can get you instant solutions when every second counts. Search for something like “is salt or baking soda better for stain removal?” to get the information you need with links to learn more — helping you save the day and get back to your guests in no time.

12. Handle logistics in the Google Home app

Our redesigned Google Home app lets you keep the good vibes going from your phone. The app houses your favorite Nest and other smart home devices and features: You can adjust your Nest Thermostat; unlock the front door as guests arrive and lower the lights to set the mood.

source

48 tips and prompts for holiday planning, travel and more

Stay organized and save time

12. Turn on your Pixel’s Extreme Battery Saver for long travel days. (With the newest Pixels, you’ll get up to 100 hours of battery life for Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, and the 10 Pro XL has our fastest charging yet at 70% in just 30 minutes. And if you take advantage of Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL holiday deals right now, you’ll get Google AI Pro for a year on us.)

13. Do you prep for a busy season by taking screenshots of meals, events, gifts and whatever else catches your attention across social media and the web? Keep it all organized in Pixel Screenshots. It can auto-organize for you (like grouping all recipe screenshots together) or you can create categories (like “table setting inspo” and “gift ideas for the cousins”). The app even uses on-device AI so you can search and find exactly what you’re looking for.

14. Check out Google Maps’ new trends before you head to your family dinner, the post office or shopping mall! You might save yourself some valuable time.

15. Speaking of saving time: New Gemini features in Google Maps mean you can ask questions like your friend is in the passenger seat— for example, if you’re on the way to a holiday party somewhere you’ve never been, you can ask “Where can I stop on the way to pick up flowers?” and then follow-up by asking what the parking situation is like at your final destination.

16. Search “near me” on Google Maps: Try things like “holiday events near me” or “holiday pop-ups near me” and see what’s going on nearby. Also check out Google Maps’ updated Explore tab: Just swipe up to see trending and popular restaurants, activities and sights near you.

17. If you have a Pixel Watch 4, rely on Raise to Talk to use Gemini when your hands are full while shopping, cooking, wrapping gifts or whatever else. Just raise your wrist and ask Gemini to do things like set a timer, remind you to leave the house in 30 minutes or ask it what day your holiday happy hour is.

18. Traveling with a group over the holidays? Make a custom, shareable Gem that has all the details, giving everyone access to an AI travel guide with all the info they’ll need.

source

Introducing Nano Banana Pro

How Nano Banana Pro helps you bring any idea or design to life

Nano Banana Pro can help you visualize any idea and design anything – from prototypes, to representing data as infographics, to turning handwritten notes into diagrams.

With Nano Banana Pro, now you can:

Generate more accurate, context-rich visuals based on enhanced reasoning, world knowledge and real-time information

With Gemini 3’s advanced reasoning, Nano Banana Pro doesn’t just create beautiful images, it also helps you create more helpful content. You can get accurate educational explainers to learn more about a new subject, like context-rich infographics and diagrams based on the content you provide or facts from the real world. Nano Banana Pro can also connect to Google Search’s vast knowledge base to help you create a quick snapshot for a recipe or visualize real-time information like weather or sports.

source

Google Search with Gemini 3: Our most intelligent search yet

Thanks to Gemini 3’s advanced reasoning, Google Search’s query fan-out technique is getting a major upgrade. Now, not only can it perform even more searches to uncover relevant web content, but because Gemini more intelligently understands your intent it can find new content that it may have previously missed. This means Search can help you find even more credible, highly relevant content for your specific question.

And in the coming weeks, we’re also enhancing our automatic model selection in Search with Gemini 3. This means Search will intelligently route your most challenging questions in AI Mode and AI Overviews to this frontier model — while continuing to use faster models for simpler tasks. This will be rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the U.S.

Generative UI: Visual layouts, interactive tools and simulations in AI Mode

Gemini 3’s unparalleled multimodal understanding and powerful agentic coding capabilities are also unlocking more bespoke generative user interfaces. Now, Gemini 3 in AI Mode can dynamically create the ideal visual layout for responses on the fly — featuring interactive tools and simulations — tailored to your query.

To do this, Gemini 3 analyzes your question and creates the most helpful layout, building a custom response with visual elements — like images, tables and grids — so the final output isn’t just informative, but clear and actionable. When the model detects that an interactive tool will help you better understand the topic, it uses its generative capabilities to code a custom simulation or tool in real-time and adds it into your response.

source

New ways to plan travel with AI in Search

Then, AI Mode will show you a curated list to choose from, with direct links so you can finalize your booking through partners like OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats, Booksy, Fresha and Vagaro.

Agentic booking for restaurants is rolling out this week on AI Mode in the U.S. (no Labs opt-in required), so you can easily make plans for family dinners, date nights, holiday brunches and more. And as we recently shared, agentic booking for event tickets and local appointments is available to all U.S. Labs users.

In the future, we’ll also make it possible to finish booking flights and hotels directly in AI Mode. We’re working with industry partners to build an experience where you can simply describe what you’re looking for to compare different flights or hotels and browse helpful information like schedules, prices, room photos, amenities and reviews. You’ll be able to follow up and refine your options, and then once you’re ready, you can quickly complete the booking with the partner of your choice.

source

Doodle for Google is back to celebrate students’ superpowers

The annual Doodle for Google contest is back for its 17th year! This time, we’re inviting K-12 students to create artwork about their personal strengths and talents, in response to the theme “My superpower is…” The contest is open for entries from October 15, 2025 to December 10, 2025.

Each year, we look forward to highlighting the amazing creativity of children and teens in a U.S. based school (including homeschool) or a school in Puerto Rico, U.S. territories and freely associated states, or The District of Columbia. Children of military personnel abroad can enter this year, and will be judged with applications from their home state.

This year promises to bring another round of spectacular creations as we invite students to look inward and consider the unique traits that make them special. We’re excited to see what students come up with as they reflect on the ways that they contribute to their schools, families, or wider local communities.

We’re also kicking off a new approach to Doodle for Google that will bring more student artwork to the Google homepage, allow us to celebrate winners in bigger ways and better align with the academic year.

Instead of only one student, there will now be five finalists who receive a $10,000 college scholarship, their Doodle featured on our Google.com homepage and a chromebook. Our judges and national voting process will then help determine which of the five finalists becomes the National Winner and receives an additional $45,000 scholarship, plus a $50,000 technology package for their school.

We have also changed the timeframe of the contest from spring to fall. This will coincide with the start of the school year–so educators can more easily incorporate Doodle for Google into their plans and finalists get to be celebrated by their classmates and community while school is still in session.

This year’s judging panel will include NBA powerhouse Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ashley Crosson, National Teacher of the Year.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is a nine-time NBA All-Star forward for the Milwaukee Bucks. His impressive basketball career includes two MVP awards, an epic NBA championship with the Bucks in 2021, and an NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. Committed to using his legacy to help others achieve their dreams, he and his family have established the Charles Antetokounmpo Family Foundation as well as the Antetokounmpo Academy to empower youth through sport, building confidence through education and developing life skills.

Ashlie Crosson, the 2025 National Teacher of the Year, serves as an English teacher at Pennsylvania’s Mifflin County High School, where she aims to prepare her students to navigate the complexities of our global society. Crosson believes in building a strong curriculum that develops communication skills, empowers students to solve problems, and expands their worldview. Crosson teaches Advanced Placement language and composition, English 10, and Survival Stories, an elective that approaches global humanitarian crises from a youth perspective. She also advises the journalism program, which publishes the school newspaper and district magazine. As the 2025 National Teacher of the Year, Crosson will spend a year representing educators and serving as an ambassador for the teaching profession.

How to enter the contest

Doodle for Google 2025-26 is now open for entries until December 10, 2025. For details on how to enter, resources for educators and parents, as well the contest rules, head to our website. We can’t wait to see the creativity and power of these Doodles!

source

We’re introducing a new way to explore and organize images in the Google app.

People all over the world already turn to Google Images for visual discovery, whether you’re planning a trip, sprucing up your apartment or deciding what to wear to a holiday party. Sometimes it’s hard to describe what you want — but you know it when you see it. Starting today, we’re making that inspiration even easier to find with a new way to discover visual content in the Google app.

Simply tap the new “Images” icon at the bottom of the app screen to see new images each day, tailored to your interests. You can browse, save to your collections or search for even more inspo based on what you find. It’s a seamless way to organize your creative ideas, from your first spark to your next project, all in one place.

This feature will be rolling out over the next few weeks in the Google app for Android and iOS in the U.S.

source

Google Finance adds AI features for research, earnings and more

Below the call information, you’ll find new, AI-powered insights under “At a glance” that will update before, during and after the call, giving you a snapshot of key information across news reports and analyst reactions. You can also compare the latest financials against historical data, see how this quarter’s performance stacks up against expectations, view related earnings and previous reports and access key documents and forms.

Try the new Google Finance in India

This week, we’re beginning to roll out the new Google Finance in India, with language support for both English and Hindi, so even more people can access AI-powered financial insights. The latest capabilities (Deep Search, prediction markets and earnings) are rolling out first in the U.S., and we aim to expand to more users over time.

To try the new Google Finance in the U.S. or India, just head to google.com/finance/beta on mobile or desktop and make sure you’re signed into your Google account.

source

AI Mode in Chrome is easier to use on iOS and Android.

As Chrome enters a new era with AI, we’re making it easier to access AI Mode, our most powerful AI search experience, when you’re on the go in Chrome on iOS and Android. Available today in the U.S., you’ll now see an AI Mode button under the search bar when opening a “New Tab” page in Chrome. This will let you ask more complex, multi-part questions, and then dive even deeper into a topic with follow-up questions and relevant links.

The shortcut for AI Mode in Chrome will also soon be coming to 160 new countries and other languages, including Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and more across all your devices, from desktop to mobile.

source

Holiday 100: The gifts everyone’s searching for

General summary

Gift hunting can be hard. Google’s Holiday 100 list makes it easier. The list has 100 gift ideas based on top Google Search trends like “movie projector” and “crescent bags.” Go to the Shopping tab on Google Search or visit g.co/holiday100 for more ideas.


Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

Basic explainer

Google looked at what people searched for online to find the most popular gifts. They made a list called the Holiday 100 with ideas for everyone. Lots of people want things like movie projectors and cool backpacks. You can find the list on Google Shopping to help pick presents.


Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

Shakespeare-ish

The perfect gift, a quest we all embrace,
Is hard to find, in this fast-moving place.
But Google knows what trends the shoppers seek.

From countless searches, insights they obtain,
And list the gifts that folks most want to gain.
Projectors, bags, and rings that brightly gleam.

So check the Holiday 100 with care,
And find the present that you wish to share.
Go forth and shop, fulfill each holiday dream.


Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

source