It’s a big week for Pixel fans. Google’s annual Made by Google showcase returns to New York on Wednesday, 12 August, with the Pixel 11 range expected to lead a packed slate of hardware announcements.
The event will stream live worldwide, although Gulf viewers will need to stay up well past midnight–or catch the replay the following morning. Here’s when and where to watch Made by Google 2026, who will be appearing and what Google is expected to unveil.
For anyone watching from the US, the livestream starts on 12 August at 3pm Pacific, or 6pm Eastern. For those of us in the Gulf, though, this will mean tuning in during the small hours of Thursday 13 August.
Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Muscat can clock in at 2am, while viewers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar get a 1am start.
Made by Google 2026 will be streamed live on the official Made by Google YouTube channel and through the Google Store. If 1am or 2am feels a little too committed for a Thursday morning, the full presentation should remain available on YouTube to watch afterwards.
Trevor Noah will host this year’s event, taking over from Jimmy Fallon, as Google confirmed in a teaser video. He will be joined by an unusually crowded guest list that includes basketball player Steph Curry, Call Her Daddy co-creator and podcaster Alex Cooper, Indian cricketer Shubman Gill, Japanese actor Ayami Nakajo, singer-songwriter PinkPantheress, track-and-field athlete Chari Hawkins, basketball player JuJu Watkins, former footballer Steven Gerrard and actor Daniel Durant.
What, exactly, they will all be doing remains to be seen. But this is Google, so there will probably be some Gemini involved.
Here’s what we’re expecting to see at this year’s Made by Google showcase. And, as is tradition with such a launch, quite a lot of it has already leaked.
The buzzy unveiling of the event, as expected, is the Pixel 11 range. Four phones are set to drop, including the standard Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. The leaks hint that Google is not so much reinventing the wheel with the Pixel line-up; rather, it’s just sort of polishing what it already does very well. All four are expected to run Google’s new Tensor G6 chip, alongside a Titan M3 security chip and Android 17.
The Pro models are also expected to stick with the familiar triple-camera set-up while digital zoom will reportedly jump from 100x to 120x. Back in May, leaks pointed to a new lighting feature called Pixel Glow, reportedly built into the camera bar. More recent reports suggest Google will market it as HiLight: an RGB light that can pulse in Gemini’s mood ring-adjacent colours while the AI is thinking, as well as provide visual feedback for calls and other functions.
The less fun news, perhaps, is pricing. The global memory shortage shrinks the range entirely, meaning it now starts at 256GB and $899 (AED 3,299), roughly $100 up on last year, with the Pro Fold presumed to be priced at $1,899 (approximately AED 6,974). Base RAM slips to 12GB across the line-up, including the Pros, a step down from the 16GB standard of the last two generations.
Google has not announced an official Pixel 11 launch in either the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Neither country currently has an official Google Store for Pixel phones, and previous models have generally reached Gulf buyers through third-party sellers and imports.
The Pixel 11 may therefore become available locally without receiving an official regional launch. Prices, warranties and after-sales support could vary between sellers. Google is expected to confirm the phone’s initial markets during Made by Google on 12 August.
Google’s current regional availability list does not include the UAE or Saudi Arabia.
It is also expected that the Pixel Watch 5 will be unveiled alongside the phones, running the new, more agentic Wear OS 7. The spec sheet leaked in full via GSMArena hints that the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 chip is back, this time with more RAM and double the storage. The more interesting additions, though, are all to do with safety. Satellite SOS is reportedly included free, while loss-of-pulse detection is designed to contact emergency services if it detects that your heart has stopped.
Google’s long-awaited answer to the AirTag, the Pixel Tag, will also seemingly make its debut. It’s set to be an oblong Bluetooth tracker that plugs into the Find Hub network, and should finally give Android users a first-party way to locate their belongings. It has taken Google long enough to get here, so the unveiling on Wednesday will determine whether the wait was worth it.
The Googlebook, Google’s rumoured Android-powered laptop reboot, is expected to sit this one out and arrive at a later date. The Android XR glasses are also unlikely to get a full release this week, although we may get more of a look at what Google has planned during the event.
