Fully Reimagined: AI-First Google Colab

MAY 20, 2025
Nick Sharma Product Lead
Mahi Kolla Associate Product Manager
Ilai Soloducho Senior Technical Program Manager

For years, Google Colab has empowered developers and researchers with a free of charge, cloud-hosted Jupyter Notebook environment right in their browser, complete with access to Google Cloud GPUs and TPUs – a game-changer for accelerating AI and simplifying collaboration.

Today, at Google I/O, we're thrilled to announce a new, reimagined AI-first Colab that takes this commitment to the next level. Functioning as a true coding partner, Colab's new agentic collaborator understands your current code, actions, intentions, and goals. This deep integration into your workflow empowers you to tackle your most challenging coding problems faster than ever before, lowering the barrier for anyone who wants to explore and unlock insights from their data.

Colab AI operates across your entire notebook, providing more accurate responses, taking actions across multiple cells, and engaging in meaningful ways to help you build faster. Coding is an iterative and collaborative experience, and Colab is designed to be just that – you can issue short commands, use follow-up prompts to refine your ideas, and truly work with the agent.

The new way to code in Colab, from executing autonomous plans to iterative agentic analysis all in your notebook. (Sequences shortened. Results for illustrative purposes. Gemini may make mistakes.)

Key Capabilities to Supercharge Your Workflow

Colab, now powered by agentic assistance with Gemini 2.5 Flash, puts a range of powerful features right at your fingertips.


1. Iterative Querying

All of Colab’s powerful AI features, available through a simple conversational experience. You can ask Colab to:

  • Generate and transform code: Ask for short functions, boilerplate, or whole-notebook refactors

  • Chat about Python libraries: Discover new libraries and tools and request sample usage, grounded in the context of your work.

  • Fix Errors intelligently: Colab's most popular AI feature is now even smarter. When errors arise, Colab iteratively suggests fixes right in your notebook, presenting proposed code changes in a diff view for your review.


2. Next-Generation Data Science Agent (DSA)

Data Science Agent, launched in March 2025, helps you explore your data, dive deep into analysis, and uncover insights you care about. Today, DSA is getting upgraded and fully integrated with Colab’s new unified AI experience. This includes:

  • Intelligent file analysis: Ask Colab to review uploaded and existing files and dive into in-depth analysis

  • Autonomous agentic flows: Trigger complete analytical workflows. DSA will autonomously generate a plan, execute the necessary code, reason about the results, and present its findings.

  • Interactive feedback: Maintain control while the agent is working. Provide feedback during plan execution to reroute or refine the process, ensuring the analysis aligns perfectly with your research goals.


3. Effortless Code Transformation

Need to modify existing code? Simply describe the transformation you need, and Colab will identify the relevant code and suggest the necessary changes in a clear, intuitive diff view.


4. Flexible Interaction

Colab offers multiple ways to engage with this new experience:

  • Center stage box: For quick prompts and in-notebook actions, simply click the Gemini spark in the bottom toolbar.

  • Side panel: For more in-depth discussions, providing extra space for review and iteration.


Colab, Reimagined for AI-first development

All of these changes, and more, are the first of many updates as we create an easier and more powerful AI-first Colab. Looking ahead, we’ll be bringing more capabilities, improved flows, and even more agents into the fold. With previous Gemini integrations showing >2x efficiency gains* in Colab, this AI-first reimagining can supercharge your workflows.

We can't wait for you to experience the power of Colab firsthand, and to see how it transforms your coding journey! The new Colab will be rolling out to the first users today, with more being added weekly.

Please join our Google Labs Discord community and the #colab-ai channel to connect. Happy building!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


*
Based on an internal Google study.