Product Updates

Google releases Gemini Robotics ER 2 (preview) + announces ER 1.6 shutdown

Google’s Gemini API changelog announces Gemini Robotics ER 2 preview endpoints (including a streaming variant) and says the older Gemini Robotics ER 1.6 preview model will shut down on August 31, 2026.

By Authority AI Tools Editorial Team•2026-07-31•10 min read

Last reviewed: 2026-07-31

AATET

Authority AI Tools Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Authority AI Tools editorial team maintains this directory using vendor documentation, dated source checks, product changelogs, and clearly identified hands-on observations where available.

In an entry dated July 30, 2026, Google’s Gemini API changelog says Gemini Robotics ER 2 is now in public preview, with two new model endpoints for embodied reasoning in robotics.

New ER 2 preview model IDs

According to the changelog, Google introduced:

gemini-robotics-er-2-preview
gemini-robotics-er-2-streaming-preview — which Google describes as "optimized for real-time text streaming using the Live API, enabling low-latency robot agents with bidirectional audio and video input"

Google says these endpoints accept text, image, video, and audio inputs and "support function calling with blocking behavior for physical robot actions" — the blocking semantics matter when a tool call maps to a movement that has to finish before the next step begins.

What ER 2 adds

Google lists the preview’s capabilities as advanced spatial reasoning, agentic code execution, multi-step tool orchestration, video moment finding, progress classification, and multi-robot coordination.

Two of those — agentic code execution and multi-step tool orchestration — are the same primitives that drive non-robotics coding agents, which makes ER 2 a useful reference point for how Google is converging its agent tooling across domains.

Deprecation / shutdown

Google also announces that gemini-robotics-er-1.6-preview will be shut down on August 31, 2026. That continues a steady cadence in this family: gemini-robotics-er-1.5-preview was retired on April 30, 2026 (covered in our Gemini API April 2026 update). If you have preview robotics traffic in production, plan the migration now rather than on the shutdown date.

Source

Google AI for Developers — “Gemini API: Release notes” (July 30, 2026 entry): https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/changelog

Tools Mentioned in This Article

Continue

Open-source, model-agnostic AI coding assistant for VS Code and JetBrains

Open Source

→

Zed

High-performance Rust code editor with agentic AI and open-source edit prediction

Freemium

→

Free Resource

2026 AI Coding Tools Comparison Chart

Side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, and capabilities for every major AI coding tool.

No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Workflow Resources

Cookbook

Local coding stack with Continue and Ollama

Set up a privacy-first local AI coding workflow with Continue, Ollama, and project-level rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Google releases Gemini Robotics ER 2 (preview) + announces ER 1.6 shutdown?