Yesterday I watched Google I/O live from Kollam, Kerala. Not as a coder. As someone reskilling after 30 years in business. Here are 3 takeaways I am putting to work immediately — and why AI is no longer optional for anyone in consulting.
I have been watching technology change the world for three decades. From the first email systems at HCT Abu Dhabi in 1999 to building distance learning classrooms in 2008 before anyone knew what remote learning was — I have always believed that the people who adapt survive, and the people who wait get left behind.
Google I/O 2026 was different from previous years. This was not about new phones or updated apps. This was about AI becoming the operating layer of everything. And for someone like me — a consultant reskilling in Kollam, Kerala, after 30 years in UAE — the announcements were not abstract. They were immediately actionable.
Google announced that Gemini 3.5 Flash is now integrated directly into Google Search. The result? Search is no longer just a list of links. It reasons, synthesises and answers. For a consultant doing market research for a client, this is transformational.
I am currently completing Google AI Essentials on Coursera (Financial Aid approved). Everything I am learning about prompting and working with Gemini just got a direct real-world application. The AI I study in the morning, I can use to research a client's market by the afternoon.
Google showed that you can now drop a photo or video into the Search bar and ask questions about it. This is not a gimmick. For small business consultants and immigration advisors, this changes how we work with clients.
A client in Kollam can send me a photo of a document — a qualification certificate, a property notice, a visa form — and I can instantly research it using AI without having to type out every detail. The friction between receiving information and acting on it is disappearing.
The biggest announcement at Google I/O 2026 was the shift to agentic workflows — AI that doesn't just answer questions but takes sequences of actions to complete a task. Google's Project Mariner. NotebookLM going deeper. Gemini acting as an agent across apps.
This means the competitive advantage is no longer who can type the best prompt. The advantage now belongs to the person who can think clearly about what they want and break it into logical steps for AI to execute. That is a consultancy skill. That is a human skill.
"The people asking whether AI will replace them are asking the wrong question. The right question is: will you use AI before your competitor does?"
— Antony Ancil, Venad Global Consultancy, Kollam 2026Kerala has one of the most internationally mobile populations in the world. Over 2 million Keralites work in the Gulf alone. Hundreds of thousands more are in the UK, Canada, Australia and beyond. Every single one of them — and every family member supporting their journey — is affected by the speed and quality of information they can access.
When I returned to Kollam after 30 years in UAE, I saw consultants still working the way they did in 2005. Paper files. Phone calls for information that takes 30 seconds to find online. That gap is an opportunity.
Google I/O 2026 confirmed what I already believed: the consultants who survive the next five years will be the ones who build AI into every step of their workflow. Not as a replacement for human judgment — but as a force multiplier for it.
I am 57. I came back to Kerala after 30 years in UAE with no job, a legal battle with TATA AIA, a solar energy dispute with KSEB, and a son whose bike is in for repairs. I am building a consultancy from scratch using GitHub, Google, HubSpot and Claude.
Google I/O 2026 did not overwhelm me. It motivated me. Because every tool they announced is available to me — right now — in Kollam, Kerala, for free or near-free. The barrier to entry for using world-class AI tools has never been lower.
If you are in Kerala, in the Gulf, planning to migrate, reskilling after a career break, or just trying to understand what AI means for your work — I am building VGC as a resource for exactly this conversation.
VGC helps Kerala professionals navigate immigration, education abroad and career transitions — using honest guidance and the latest tools.
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