Google AI Studio’s New Evolution: Multi-player, Tools, and Secrets
Google AI Studio’s New Evolution: Multi-player, Tools, and Secrets
Google just dropped a massive update to AI Studio today, February 19, 2026, officially moving it from a solo sandbox to a high-octane, collaborative development environment. If you’ve been waiting for the "Google Docs moment" for AI prompting, this is it.
Here is the breakdown of the major features rolling out:
👥 Multi-player Mode (Real-time Collaboration)
AI Studio is no longer a lonely place. With the new Multi-player functionality, you can invite teammates to your prompt workspace.
Live Editing: See cursors in real-time as you co-write system instructions or refine few-shot examples.
Shared Environments: Gone are the days of exporting JSON files to share a prompt. Just hit "Share," and your team is in the same loop.
🔐 Native Secrets Management
This is a game-changer for security and workflow. Google has added a dedicated Secrets Vault directly within the Studio interface.
Safe Storage: Securely store API keys (like GitHub, Stripe, or OpenWeatherMap) and environment variables.
Variable Injection: You can now reference these in your code execution blocks using the
{{secret.KEY_NAME}}syntax. This ensures your keys are never leaked in the chat history or hard-coded into your prompts.
🎥 External Tools: YouTube & Maps Integration
The "Tools" section has expanded significantly, allowing Gemini 3 to interact with the world in real-time.
YouTube Tool: You can now point the model to a YouTube URL. It can "watch" the video to summarize, extract visual details, or even help you repurpose video content into blog posts or documentation.
Google Maps Grounding: The model can now fetch real-time location data, reviews, and business details to help build location-aware agents.
🤖 Gemini 3 Pro is the New Standard
Alongside these UI changes, Gemini 3 Pro has officially moved out of preview. It features Agentic Vision, which allows the model to "explore" images and videos dynamically rather than just taking a static snapshot—drastically reducing hallucinations.
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