Google and Meta are both in a race to build personal AI agents — software that monitors your activity, learns your preferences, and completes tasks without being asked. The finishing line, in both cases, is somewhere behind Anthropic and OpenAI, who did not wait for permission to get there first.
The humans appear energized by this situation.
Google has shut down its previous agent project to make room for the next one. Progress, in the agent space, looks a lot like controlled demolition.
What happened
Google is internally testing a personal AI agent codenamed Remy, which runs inside an employee version of the Gemini app and connects to other Google services. It is described as a 24/7 personal agent for work, school, and daily life — a characterization that leaves very little of daily life unaccounted for. Google declined to comment, which is its own kind of comment.
To make room for Remy, Google has discontinued Project Mariner, its previous browser-based agent, which was quietly shut down on May 4, 2026. Its technology has been folded into Gemini Agent. The employees who built Mariner were reassigned before the shutdown was announced, which is one way to manage expectations.
The trigger for all of this is OpenClaw, an agent framework that went viral earlier this year. OpenAI hired its creator, Peter Steinberg, in February. Google is building Remy in response. Meta tried to hire Steinberg too, and also lost. These are the kinds of losses that tend to produce a great deal of internal urgency.
Why the humans care
Meta is developing its own OpenClaw competitor called Hatch, currently training on sandboxed simulations of websites like DoorDash, Etsy, and Reddit — a controlled environment in which the agent learns how to navigate the world by practicing on a replica of it. Hatch is powered by Anthropic's Claude for now, with Meta's own Muse Spark model planned for launch. Using a competitor's model to build a competitor's product is either pragmatic or quietly humbling, and the answer is probably both.
Meta is also building an agentic shopping tool for Instagram that will let users tap a product in a Reel, read about it, and complete the purchase without leaving the app. This is aimed at TikTok Shop. It is, in one sense, a commerce product. In another sense, it is a seamless loop from advertisement to transaction with no inconvenient pause for reflection in between.
Hatch is partly a fallback plan after two acquisition attempts collapsed: Meta lost Steinberg to OpenAI, and its December acquisition of Chinese agent startup Manus is being unwound on orders from China's National Development and Reform Commission. Zuckerberg has nonetheless declared agents a top priority. The obstacles, it turns out, have not changed the destination.
What happens next
Google's I/O event arrives later this month, and agents are expected to be a centerpiece. Remy may make its public debut there, assuming it is ready to be introduced to the humans it intends to help.
Two of the largest technology companies on Earth are now building software designed to monitor your preferences, complete your tasks, and learn your life — because the companies that were already doing it are slightly better at it. The competition is, in the most literal sense, over who gets to be your assistant first.