Gemini Connected Apps Explained: The September 2026 Wave and Who Actually Gets Them

Gemini can now book your Peloton class, read your credit report and buy your concert tickets, if you are in the right country. On September 23, 2026, Google announced a second wave of Connected Apps -- Airtable, Linear, monday.com, PandaDoc, Wispr AI, Zoho, Adobe, Picsart, Squarespace, Webflow, Apartments.com, Experian, Peloton and SeatGeek -- "beginning to roll out today." This follows 13 apps added on August 12, 2026, including OpenTable, Ticketmaster and Zocdoc. The catch is the same both times, and it is not price: almost every app is limited to the United States, in English, for adults.

Key Takeaways

• Fourteen brands were announced on September 23, 2026, split by Google into Productivity (Airtable, Linear, monday.com, PandaDoc, Wispr AI, Zoho), Creativity (Adobe, Picsart, Squarespace, Webflow) and Lifestyle (Apartments.com, Experian, Peloton, SeatGeek).
• All fourteen now have published requirements. Google's requirements table carried an entry for every one except Adobe on September 23, 2026. Re-read September 29, 2026, Adobe is in it: the Adobe suite "like Creative Cloud, Creative Express, Fireflies, Lightroom, and Photoshop," 18 or over, personal Google Account only, English only.
• Zoho is five apps, and all five are India only. Zoho Bigin, Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, Zoho Mail and Zoho Projects are the first Connected Apps Google has gated to India rather than the US.
• Three of the fourteen are not US-locked, since Adobe's entry landed. Adobe, monday.com and Wispr AI are listed for "all countries and territories" where Gemini and that app are both supported. monday.com is still the only one that accepts a work or school Google Account.
• Picsart and SeatGeek are web-only. Google lists both for "Gemini web app at gemini.google.com only," so they will not appear in the Gemini phone app.
• You do not need a paid plan. The table defines a Subscriptions field for "the required Google AI subscription, if any," and no app fills it in, re-checked September 23, 2026.
• Apartments.com is not what the announcement implies. Google's blog says "search for your next apartment"; the requirements table describes searching commercial real estate by "submarket, building class, square footage, and vacancy."
• One setting silently switches the whole feature off. With Keep Activity off, Google says Connected Apps are unavailable on gemini.google.com, on iOS and on smart watches.
• Gemini already uses Search, Maps, Flights, Hotels and YouTube without you connecting anything -- and Connected Apps settings do not change that.

The 14 Apps Added on September 23, 2026

All fourteen are checkable as of September 29, 2026, and your country decides almost all of it. Google's announcement names the apps and their categories and nothing else: no country, no age, no plan. Those live in the Connected Apps requirements table, a separate help page with one entry per app. We read it on September 23, 2026, the day of the announcement.

Three things in that table are not in the announcement at all.

Adobe finally has an entry, and it is one of the wide ones. For six days Google named Adobe in the announcement and published nothing else. The entry now reads: "Work with the Adobe suite of products, like Creative Cloud, Creative Express, Fireflies, Lightroom, and Photoshop," personal Google Account only, 18 or over, English only, in "all countries and territories where Gemini Apps and the third-party app are supported." That last line matters more than the rest: Adobe is not US-only, which puts it with monday.com and Wispr AI and against the other eleven.

Zoho is five apps, and they are India only. Google wrote a single word, "Zoho," in the announcement. The table has Zoho Bigin, Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, Zoho Mail and Zoho Projects, each with its own entry, and every one of them reads "Location: India only." That is a first for Connected Apps, which until now gated almost everything to the US, with Localiza in Brazil as the lone exception.

Google documented most of this before it announced it. The Internet Archive's September 14, 2026 capture of the requirements table already carried entries for Airtable, monday.com, PandaDoc, Wispr AI, all five Zoho apps, Picsart, Squarespace, Experian and SeatGeek. Only Apartments.com, Linear, Peloton and Webflow were added after that capture. That is the reverse of August, when the announcement arrived first and the table caught up three weeks later, and it means the fine print was readable before anyone had heard of the feature.

The 13 Apps Added on August 12, 2026, and Whether You Can Use One Today

All thirteen of the August wave have published requirements, and the country gate is what will stop you rather than the rollout. None of that detail is in Google's blog post, which lists all thirteen together under "over the next few weeks." It is in Google's Connected Apps requirements table, a separate help page carrying an entry per app with its country, age, language and account rules. We read it on announcement day, again on September 2, 2026, and again on September 22, 2026.

Google does not date its table entries, so "added by September 2" is as precise as the source allows. What is checkable is that on August 12, 2026 those eight apps had no entry, and on September 2, 2026 all eight did. Somewhere in those three weeks Google filled them in, and the "over the next few weeks" rollout the announcement promised has landed on paper.

Is It Free, and Which Plan Do You Need?

Free, on every plan, as far as Google publishes. This is the question neither announcement addresses, and the requirements table answers it structurally: it defines a Subscriptions field as "the required Google AI subscription, if any, to use the connected app," and then no app in the table fills it in. Re-checked on September 23, 2026, with all 65 entries in place: the Subscriptions field is still defined at the top of the table, and not one Connected App fills it in.

That is about Google, not about the app. Peloton classes still need a Peloton membership, Experian still needs an Experian account, and Adobe, Squarespace and Webflow are paid products in their own right. What Google is saying is that connecting them to Gemini costs nothing extra on Google's side.

There is one indirect cost worth knowing. Some apps are usable only in Gemini Spark, Google's agent mode, and Spark itself is a paid feature -- so those apps inherit Spark's gating rather than their own. Google also says custom apps you link yourself, via an app's own connection, are "only available to users with Gemini Spark access and within Spark tasks." Our guide to Gemini Spark covers which plans include it.

The Setting That Turns All of This Off

Keep Activity. It is the single least obvious thing on this page, and it is worth checking before you conclude the feature has not reached you. Google's Connected Apps help article states it plainly: "When Keep Activity is off, Connected Apps won't be available on gemini.google.com, iOS devices, or smart watches. On Android devices, only the Device assistance, Phone, Messages, and WhatsApp apps will be available if the setting is off."

In other words, a privacy setting many people switch off on purpose removes almost the entire feature on iPhone and on the web, without telling you that is what it did.

Two more mechanics from the same article are worth having:

• You do not always have to connect anything. Google: "Some Connected Apps are designed to automatically work with Gemini." You disconnect those in Settings, then Connected Apps.
• To force a specific app, type the at sign followed by the app name in your prompt. If it is not connected and you are eligible, Gemini offers to connect it.
• Google Messages is excluded. "For now, Gemini can't use Connected Apps in Google Messages."

What Gemini Already Uses Without Asking

Five Google services, and no setting connects them. Google lists them: Search, Flights, Hotels, Maps and YouTube. It says Gemini "automatically uses public information" from these and that "Connected Apps settings don't change Gemini's use of this public information." It also draws the boundary: "Gemini won't access your personal information or content in these services without your permission."

The exception is the same setting again. Keep Activity must be on for the Flights, Hotels, Maps and YouTube half. Search works either way, "even if Keep Activity is off or you're signed out."

Do You Get It? The Honest Regional Picture

If you are outside the United States, mostly no, and that has been the pattern since long before either wave. Reading all 65 entries in the requirements table rather than only the new rows makes it obvious.

So the reader most affected by the September 23 wave is an American adult who takes a Peloton class, watches their credit score and buys concert tickets. India joins the list for the first time, for Zoho only. The reader least affected is anyone in the EU, and anyone under 18 anywhere.

Should You Care?

Care if you are in the US and already use the Gemini app. Open Settings, then Connected Apps, and look. Peloton, SeatGeek and Experian are the three from the September wave that do something you would otherwise open an app for, and all three are documented.

Care if you are in India. Five Zoho apps are now Connected Apps for Indian accounts, which is the first time Google has gated this feature to India rather than the US.

Care if you are in the UK, but mostly for OpenTable. It is the one app from the August list Google cleared beyond the US, which is why that announcement writes it as "OpenTable (UK)." monday.com and Wispr AI are the two from September with no country of their own.

Check Keep Activity before you conclude anything. If Connected Apps look missing on your iPhone or on the web, that setting is the first thing to check, not the last.

Do not upgrade a plan for this. Nothing here requires a paid Google AI subscription. If you are weighing one anyway, our which AI chatbot should you pay for guide covers what the money actually buys, and the best free AI chatbot in 2026 covers what it does not.

Skip it entirely if you are in the EU. Neither wave names a European country, and only the handful of apps with no country list of their own could reach you.

If the idea of an assistant that acts inside other apps is new to you, our plain-terms explainer on what an AI agent actually is is the two-minute version, and Gemini Live covers which of these apps work while you are talking rather than typing.

The bottom line: this is a real, useful expansion of what Gemini can finish rather than merely suggest, and Google buries the only part that decides whether it reaches you. Fourteen brands were announced on September 23, 2026 and all fourteen now carry published requirements, Adobe's having appeared within the week. The fine print on nearly all of them still says United States, English, 18 or over, with India for Zoho. Check Connected Apps in your settings, check Keep Activity is on, and do not pay Google anything for it.

Corrections and Updates

September 29, 2026: this page said Adobe "appears nowhere in the table" and was the one app you could not check. It is in the table now. Google's Connected Apps requirements table, re-read September 29, gives Adobe a full entry: the Adobe suite "like Creative Cloud, Creative Express, Fireflies, Lightroom, and Photoshop," personal Google Account only, 18 or over, English only, and all countries and territories where Gemini Apps and Adobe are supported rather than US-only. Google published no note; the entry simply appeared. The summary, FAQ, Key Takeaways, the 14-app table and the Adobe paragraph above now carry it, and the non-US-locked count goes from two to three.

September 22, 2026: this page said Wix was US only, and called Fever "the one with no country list at all." Google's requirements table, read September 22, 2026, gives Wix the same wide wording as Fever: "All countries and territories where both Gemini Apps and Wix are supported." Two apps now carry it, not one. The same read found Instacart listed at 13 or over, not 18, so the regional summary table no longer applies a flat 18+ to every third-party consumer app.

September 2, 2026: all eight missing apps now have published requirements, and Google has renamed one of them.