Gemini app splits into three: Chat, Spark, and Daily Brief

A promise that doesn't match the screen

On August 26 (local time), Google announced new Gemini Live voice features, emphasizing that users shouldn't have to guess in advance whether a task calls for Spark or Daily Brief. The pitch was that you could just say whatever you needed out loud and the app would sort out the rest. But open the actual Gemini app, and Chat, Spark, and Daily Brief still sit there as three separate icons in three separate menu slots. The promise of not having to guess and the reality of picking which button to tap every single time are two very different things.

Chat, Spark, Daily Brief: three forks inside Gemini

The Gemini app is a massive service — Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on August 11 that it had crossed 1 billion monthly active users. But inside that one app, regular Chat, Spark, and Daily Brief each occupy their own icon and their own spot in the navigation.

Daily Brief pulls in Gmail and calendar data to deliver proactive, personalized updates — essentially an AI-assistant diary. The problem is it doesn't distinguish urgent matters from noise. It might nudge you to continue a search you'd started in the chatbot, or resurface something you'd already googled, which ends up feeling intrusive rather than useful.

Spark is the opposite case. It's an agentic feature that actually executes tasks on the user's behalf, and by most accounts it's genuinely useful. The problem is that Google chose to spin it off as its own separate brand. Ordinary users shouldn't have to think about which part of the app a given request belongs in — but that's exactly what the current structure forces them to do.

Claude and ChatGPT face the same dilemma

This structural issue isn't unique to Google. As the table below shows, Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT have both split their products into separate modes by function.

Service	Mode split	Notes
Gemini app	Chat / Spark / Daily Brief	Three features, each with its own icon and menu
Claude	Chat / Cowork	Until this week, the two modes didn't even share conversation memory
ChatGPT	Chat / Work	Requires switching modes depending on task type

The Claude app is split into "Chat" and "Cowork," and until this week those two modes didn't even share memory of prior conversations. ChatGPT has the same structure, forcing users to toggle between "Chat" and "Work." Regardless of how each company designed its internal architecture, users end up having to learn separate brand names for what are ultimately just different screens generated by the same underlying model.

Apple's opposite approach

Apple's Siri strategy looks comparatively unglamorous, but there's an argument it could win over consumers precisely because of that. iPhone and Apple device users don't have to change a single habit. Spotlight search, the Photos app, the Camera, Siri voice requests — Apple is just making the apps people already use smarter, without asking anyone to learn a new interface.

AI assistants that work with a single text

The same logic may explain why text-based AI services are catching on. Poke, Ollie, Lindy, Orchid, Lucas, Folk, Tomo, and Instinct all work the same simple way: you send a text, and the assistant handles the rest. As a16z investment partner Justine Moore put it in a post, "People want a contact they can text like a friend." Texting is an interface everyone already understands, which means there's no need to figure out which feature inside a larger app you're supposed to use.

The same branding battle is playing out in Korea

According to domestic reports, Google has relaunched a promotion offering Korean university students a free year of paid Gemini membership to coincide with the new fall semester, and the marketing rivalry between ChatGPT and Gemini is heating up in the Korean market as well. While OpenAI strengthens its dedicated environment for teens aged 13 to 17, Google is targeting university and graduate students — with classrooms increasingly becoming the new battleground for both companies. As that marketing competition intensifies, the underlying confusion over which feature to tap inside the app is likely to show up just as much in the Korean market.

Editor's take

What makes this worth flagging is that it isn't just a Google problem. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are all, in effect, selling multiple windows layered on top of a single language model — and each company has designed its product by slapping a separate name on every window. It makes perfect sense for engineering orgs to split into a Spark team, a Cowork team, a Work team. But it's a different matter entirely to expect users to internalize that org chart.

The generational comparison makes the trend even clearer. Back in February 2024, when Google folded Bard into Gemini, the whole pitch was simplicity — one unified chatbot. Two years later, that same app has sprouted three sub-brands again: Chat, Spark, and Daily Brief. Rather than getting simpler as features multiplied, it fragmented further — the exact same pattern as ChatGPT splitting into Chat and Work, or Claude splitting into Chat and Cowork.

For teams in Korea looking to adopt AI tools, the practical lesson here is clear: resist the urge to name every new feature you bolt on. Rather than splitting screens into search, summarize, and draft modes for an internal AI assistant, it's better to aim for a structure where users type one thing into one box and the right capability kicks in behind the scenes. That's ultimately why text-based assistants like Poke and Lindy are gaining traction — the only interface a user ever has to learn is sending a text.

It wouldn't be surprising if Google reworks the Gemini app's navigation within the next few weeks. This criticism landed right as Google was busy promoting its new voice features, so the next update may well consolidate the brands, or at least simplify the screen structure. On the flip side, if Anthropic or OpenAI moves first to erase the line between chat and work modes, Gemini could end up looking like the one playing catch-up.