Google is quietly rebuilding the front door to its most popular products. On October 28, the company opened its Connected Apps Platform to developers in the United States, letting outside apps plug directly into Gemini and Google Search instead of waiting for a private partnership deal. According to TechCrunch, the platform is now in public preview for developers who join a waitlist, with access rolling out in phases over the coming months.
Until now, getting an app inside Gemini or Search meant working closely with Google. That gate kept the catalog small and curated. The new platform replaces the handshake with a standard submission route, and that is the real story here: Google is turning its AI surfaces into a distribution channel, not just a feature.
The Closed Partnership Door Swings Open
Connected apps already exist in Gemini and Search. Link a service, ask in plain language, and the assistant acts on your behalf. You could connect to Canva to design a flyer, or to YouTube Music to build a playlist, without opening either app first. As 9to5Google notes, more than 50 third-party connected apps are already available in Gemini, alongside Google’s own Workspace, Photos, and YouTube services.
The catch was access. If Google had not picked you, users could not reach you through Gemini at all. Now any developer can register, test, and submit an app through the new Google Connected Console, then choose whether it appears in Search, in the Gemini app, or in both.
Build Once, Reach Both Surfaces
Google is offering two technical routes in. Developers can run a cloud-hosted MCP server, using the Model Context Protocol that has become the industry’s shared language for AI tools, or build an Android MCP integration with the AppFunctions APIs so an Android app can expose its own functions on the device.
Once an app is live, the console reports traffic, latency, and error rates, and developers keep control of brand elements such as verified logos and authenticated accounts. Google’s pitch, quoted across the launch coverage, is to build once and reach high-intent users in both places.
The Search Gap Is the Opportunity
Here is the asymmetry most launch coverage glossed over. Gemini already has the deeper catalog, with partners including Adobe, Experian, Localiza, and Peloton. Search has far fewer integrations today, including Instacart, Canva, YouTube Music, and Yahoo Fantasy Football. Google says the existing Gemini apps will reach Search over the next few weeks, and meditation app Calm will launch on both surfaces soon.
That gap matters for timing. Developers who get in during the preview will not just be early in Gemini; they could be among the first third-party services a user meets inside an actual search result, where intent is highest and competition for attention is fiercest.
Why This Matters
This is the closest thing the agentic web has yet had to an app-store moment. In the search era, ranking determined who got seen. In the assistant era, being connected may determine who gets used at all. If users increasingly ask Gemini to book, design, shop, or plan, an app that is not connected risks becoming invisible even if its website still ranks well.
The comparison to SEO is not just a metaphor. TechCrunch explicitly frames this as one of the first steps toward visibility on the agentic web, the way search optimization once shaped website traffic. The difference is control: Google still reviews submissions, and it has not disclosed fees, ranking rules, or a date for wider availability beyond the United States. Early movers gain distribution, but they gain it on Google’s terms, inside Google’s interface, with Google measuring the traffic.
For users, the trade is convenience against permission fatigue. Every connected app needs account linking, and every link hands a live service to an assistant that can act on it. Check permission screens before linking sensitive accounts.
Meanwhile in Apps & Tools: Google has been tightening who can publish on its store, as our look at private vibe-coded apps on Google Play shows, while its own photo tools keep expanding, as covered in our guide to Google Pics.
