The move comes as tech companies race to sell AI that can work autonomously.

The announcement comes after OpenAI's September launch of always-on agents called dots that chase user goals across apps on their own. Earlier last month, Meta released Muse, a personal AI agent that can shop, book travel, send emails and make payments for users.

Alphabet shares were up marginally in early trading.

Here are more details:

* The Gemini agent plans the work, uses tools, connects to a company's business systems and returns finished work in documents, email and developer environments, Google said.

* The agent works directly inside Google Workspace apps including Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Calendar, and can also be used through Microsoft 365 and Slack.

* It picks the best model for each task, currently running on Google's Gemini models and Anthropic's Claude models, with other models to be added later.

* Users can create "coworker agents" that act as team members, with their own email address and access only to the information they are given.

* Versions built for financial services and legal work are now in preview, and versions for government, healthcare and retail are coming soon.