Google opens a Connected Apps Platform for Search and Gemini

What changed

Google launched a Connected Apps Platform on 28 October 2026, a preview that gives developers one place to build and manage apps for Search and the Gemini app, according to Google’s announcement. Once a user links a Connected App, Google’s Connected Apps developer page says, they can reach their data and act in that service from Google products.

Partner apps from Adobe, Experian, Localiza and Peloton are live in Gemini. Chips Mistry and Mai Lowe, Google’s Group Product Managers for Search and the Gemini App, wrote that “in the coming weeks, we’ll be bringing these Connected Apps to Search as well.” Google counts more than 50 Connected Apps across Search and Gemini, and a new Calm integration will cover both.

Developers integrate through a cloud-hosted MCP server or Android MCP with the AppFunctions APIs. MCP, short for Model Context Protocol, is the open standard that connects a service’s tools and authorized data to Google products. Developers apply for the preview and onboard themselves in Google Connected Console, where they register and test an app and choose Search, Gemini or both before review. After launch, they can track latency as well as traffic and error rates.

Access opens in phases, adding developers, markets and Google products over the coming months. The announcement does not name the preview countries or a Search date, or say where on a Search page, such as AI Overviews or AI Mode, the new apps will show.

Why it happened

Google’s assistant has worked with other apps since 2023, beginning with Google’s own. On 19 September 2023, Google launched Bard Extensions in English, which let Bard pull information from Google tools such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps and YouTube. On 19 May 2026, Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, the Gemini app and AI Studio, announced MCP connections to Canva, OpenTable and Instacart in the Gemini app and said more than 900 million people use Gemini every month.

On 16 July 2026, Google brought connected apps to AI Mode in Search, first in the US, with apps such as Instacart and Canva. OpenAI builds on the same standard: as of 29 October 2026, OpenAI’s developer documentation tells developers to build an MCP server for ChatGPT and Codex. Google pitches the new platform as one build that reaches users of Search and the Gemini app alike.

What it changes for GEO

Connected Apps put the action at the end of an AI answer inside the apps of brands that join, and those brands gain. Buyers ask an AI assistant how to get something done and act on the one solution it gives. In Google AI Mode that solution can be an Instacart cart, and a rival without a Connected App is missing from the app list a user picks from.

As of 29 October 2026, Google’s Search help page says AI Mode may default to the last app a user picked for a task, so the brand that fills a buyer’s first grocery cart is placed to fill the next one. Brands that move first in AI search keep the recommendation once the models learn who the answer is, and the default rule gives early apps the same hold over repeat tasks.

The first gains go to US consumer brands with an app customers already log into, since the same help page says Connected Apps in Search work in AI Mode in the US and in English. B2B manufacturers and service firms come later, because a Connected App acts inside a linked account, and a buyer still researching a supplier has none.

Google has not said how AI Mode orders the app list for a user who has linked nothing, so a buyer new to a brand still meets it in an answer built from the pages that match the buyer’s question.

A brand’s own site is the one source it controls, and AI answers cite most brands’ own websites, so pages describing the tasks the app handles belong there. A new page can be cited within weeks, and a GEO program needs about three months for a first verdict, so page work begun now matures as Google widens access.

What to do

The founder or CMO of a brand with an app or a logged-in customer service should ask the product team to apply for the Connected Apps preview now, because Google opens access in phases and AI Mode may default to the app a user last picked.

1. List the tasks customers already complete in the app, such as building a cart or making a playlist, and expose them as tools on a cloud-hosted MCP server, or through AppFunctions on Android.
2. Choose before review whether the app goes live in Search, the Gemini app or both.
3. Publish pages on the brand’s own site that describe those tasks in the buyer’s words, and keep getting pages cited in Google AI Overviews.
4. After launch, read traffic and error rates in Google Connected Console, and give the page work three months before judging it.