Avatars and a Customize tab head to Gemini desktop

Google is adding avatars to the Gemini desktop app, with a dedicated Settings section where users create and manage them without leaving the client. Testing Catalog reports that the same build also carries over the previously spotted Customize area, a discovery screen for apps, skills and plugins, with the scoop flagged in a Threads post.

At a glance

• The Customize area stays hidden in the desktop client, as on the web, and opens a discovery screen for apps, skills and plugins; the client is also being adapted for Gmail and Calendar widgets.
• Broad connector and MCP support is still absent from the consumer Gemini app: connectors exist in Gemini Business with a limited selection, and Spark was the first Google product with custom MCP support.
• Internal preparation for Gemini 4 has started after the canceled Gemini 3.5 Pro, and roughly six-month training cycles would place the next major model around December, according to Testing Catalog.

Avatars, plugins and a discovery surface read as an attempt to turn the Gemini desktop client into a workspace rather than a chat window, which is the direction Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's Codex desktop apps have already taken. The missing piece is tool access: without broad connectors or MCP in the consumer app, a Customize tab has a thin catalogue to populate. The client changes therefore matter mostly as a signal of what Google expects Gemini to do next.

Avatars get a dedicated Settings section in the Gemini desktop app

The latest version of the Gemini desktop app adds avatars, which users can create and manage from a dedicated Settings section inside the client. Google is also porting the Customize area first spotted on the web; it remains hidden in the desktop build and opens onto a discovery screen for apps, skills and plugins.

Testing Catalog notes the approach resembles what Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's Codex desktop apps already do, and describes Google as relatively late to it. The eventual combination of avatars, apps, skills, plugins, connectors and richer response widgets could turn Gemini desktop into a much broader AI workspace, according to the report.

Spark was the first Google product to carry custom MCP support

Broad connector and MCP support is still missing from the consumer Gemini app. Connectors already exist in Gemini Business, though with a limited selection, so the tooling users can attach to Gemini depends on which tier of the product they are using.

Spark was the first Google product to include custom MCP support, and that capability still has not reached the main consumer experience. Testing Catalog suggests a reason: Gemini models may require additional model-level work before they can reliably use a wider range of external tools.

The desktop app is also being adapted for new types of responses, including Gmail and Calendar widgets. Testing Catalog reads that work as preparation for handling capabilities of the next model, and notes these desktop changes remain in development for now.

Gemini 3.5 Pro was canceled and preparation for Gemini 4 has started

Google is preparing internally for Gemini 4. Based on roughly six-month training cycles, Testing Catalog places the next major model around December; the summer cycle was originally expected to produce Gemini 3.5 Pro, but that release has been canceled and Google may move directly to Gemini 4.

Bedros Pamboukian wrote on August 23, 2026 that mentions of Gemini 4 had gone from zero to more than 120 within a couple of days, with another product picking up six similar mentions less than 24 hours before the post. He described the references as starting to propagate. The pattern echoes Gemini 3, whose early checkpoints began appearing in July before the model arrived later in the year.

December is a projection, not a date

The December window comes from training-cycle math rather than any Google announcement, and no release date for Gemini 4 has been given. The new model-related behavior does not appear to be in testing outside Google, and the desktop additions have no stated rollout timeline: avatars, the Customize tab and the widget responses could all ship separately or land together with the next model.