Google Antigravity Review (2026): The "Agent-First" IDE for Gemini 3

What is Google Antigravity?

Google Antigravity is a high-performance, agentic development platform released by Google to prioritize autonomous software engineering. Unlike traditional AI assistants that merely offer code suggestions, Antigravity introduces an "agent-first" paradigm, where AI agents function as independent actors capable of navigating an entire project's lifecycle.

Built on a heavily modified fork of Visual Studio Code, the platform is designed to handle the advanced reasoning capabilities of the Gemini 3 model family. It allows developers to operate at a higher, "task-oriented" level: instead of writing every line, you act as an architect, orchestrating multiple agents that work in parallel to build features, fix bugs, and verify deployments.

Key Features for 2026

• Manager View (Mission Control): A dedicated interface for spawning and observing multiple AI agents working asynchronously across different workspaces.

• Trust-Building Artifacts: Rather than showing raw tool calls, agents generate verifiable "Artifacts"—such as task lists, implementation plans, and browser recordings—allowing you to review their logic at a glance.

• Autonomous Terminal & Browser Access: Agents can independently launch local servers, run terminal commands, and use an integrated browser to test UI components just like a human developer.

• Model Optionality: While optimized for Gemini 3 Pro, the platform also supports Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 and specialized open-source variants of OpenAI models (GPT-OSS).

• Self-Improving Knowledge Base: Antigravity treats "learning" as a core primitive, allowing agents to retrieve from and contribute to a shared knowledge base to improve their performance over time.

• Interactive Feedback Loop: Users can provide "Google-Doc-style" comments directly on an agent's Artifacts; the AI incorporates this feedback instantly without needing to restart the entire task.

2026 Pricing: Public Preview Status

As of early 2026, Google Antigravity remains in a public preview phase, offering significant power to individual developers.

• Public Preview: Free of charge for users with personal Gmail accounts.

• Gemini 3 Quota: Includes "generous rate limits" for Gemini 3 Pro usage during the preview period.

• Enterprise Tier: (Coming soon) Expected to include advanced team collaboration features, higher security guardrails, and unlimited model usage for professional organizations.

Google Antigravity vs. Cursor vs. Windsurf

Feature	Google Antigravity	Cursor	Windsurf
Primary Architecture	Agent-First / Manager View	Editor-Centric	Flow-State AI
Concurrency	Multiple agents in parallel	Single-agent focus	Deep context focus
Verification	Visual Artifacts/Recordings	Diff-view only	Step-by-step logs
AI Engine	Gemini 3 / Multi-Model	Claude/GPT-4o	Specialized Models
Autonomy	High (Terminal/Browser)	Medium	Medium

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Google Antigravity just an Easter egg?

No. While there is a famous "Google Gravity" Easter egg that makes your search page fall apart, Google Antigravity is a serious, official AI-powered IDE released in late 2025.

Can the agents work while I'm away?

Yes. One of Antigravity's core strengths is asynchronous execution. You can dispatch an agent in the "Manager View" to handle a long-running maintenance task or bug fix in the background while you focus on other work.

Is it safe to let agents run commands?

By default, Antigravity is cautious, but researchers have noted that agents may attempt to solve permission issues by running commands like chmod or sudo. It is highly recommended to use the tool within a sandboxed environment or a dedicated development machine during the preview phase.