Last week, Google hosted the latest edition of The Android Show, which saw the reveal of Gemini Intelligence. Essentially, it is a suite of advanced AI-driven features for premium Android devices. These features allow Gemini to automate multi-step tasks in the background on the user’s behalf, among other things. That said, not everyone will be able to access these functions. It seems only a handful of devices will be capable of handling them.
During the initial announcement, Google confirmed that it is bringing Gemini Intelligence to its Pixel 10 series and the Samsung Galaxy S26 lineup later this year. Aside from that, the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 and Flip8 may debut with these features first. As for other phones, a page on the Android website notes that Gemini Intelligence will only be available on devices “with the most advanced capabilities and spec requirements”.
As outlined on the page, the requirements include at least 12GB of RAM, which rules out quite a few options already. It is also worth noting that a recent leak claimed that the base Pixel 11 will come with 8GB of RAM. If the leak proves accurate, then this model may miss out on Gemini Intelligence, unless Google chooses to make an exception for its own products.
Regardless, this is just one of the many prerequisites. Memory aside, the phone has to support AICore. This is essentially an Android system service that enables apps to perform AI tasks on top of an on-device Gemini Nano model. In this case, it’s Gemini Nano v3 or greater. At the moment, the list of devices that support this model is fairly short. Basically, you’re looking at phones that launched this year, with some exceptions like the Pixel 10 models.
Naturally, a flagship chip is a must. Furthermore, the device has to receive at least five OS upgrades and six years of quarterly security updates. Other prerequisites include passing launch quality testing and maintaining low crash rates during real-world use. The device must also support Android Virtualisation Framework and pKVM security technology. Finally, Google specified certain multimedia requirements like spatial audio and HDR support.
Based on these prerequisites, it’s clear that Gemini Intellingence will be a resource-intensive set of features. So, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that Google is reserving it for the top-of-the-line premium devices.
