Comparison
Retenna vs Gemini: Google’s AI assistant, or every lifestyle expert in one mind?
Gemini is built into Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Photos and the rest of Google, and it’s getting more personal every month. Here’s what it can see, remember and do on its own today, where its personal features work, what it costs, and what changes when every part of your life has its own expert.
By Trent, founder of Retenna17 min read
Last checked 25 October 2026How we checked
Gemini changes often, and many of its features depend on your country, age and plan. Facts come from Google’s own help pages, plans pages, blog and App Store listing, checked on 25 October 2026, and every claim links to its source. Prices are Google’s US prices unless we say otherwise. Retenna is our product and isn’t out yet: where we describe it, it’s what it’s built to do, and its examples show how it works, not test results.
The short answer
If your life already runs on Gmail, Google Calendar and Maps, Gemini is a strong and often free way to ask about it: it can see what you connect, remember what you tell it and run simple jobs on a schedule. What it doesn’t hold is the rest of you: your wardrobe, your training, your kitchen, your skin and the people you love, with an expert for each, all planning together. That’s what Retenna is built for, and it can work from the same Google Calendar. It runs its own AI, built deeper for everyday life, so it answers your everyday questions already knowing you, while Gemini stays useful for search and broader questions.
Retenna and Gemini at a glance
| App | Cost | Where | What it knows about you | Plans ahead | Acts for you |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini | Free; AI Plus $4.99, AI Pro $19.99 and AI Ultra from $99.99 a month | Web, phone and Mac apps, now; some personal features US-only or not in the UK and EEA | Your connected Google apps, your past chats and facts you ask it to remember | With schedules you set up, a Daily Brief in the US, and tasks on AI Pro and Ultra | When you ask or on a schedule; some tasks ask you to confirm |
| Retenna Ours | Free early access, with founding pricing for life | Coming to iPhone, Android and the web | One living model of you, from what you do, choose and tell it, and what you connect, Google and beyond | Every expert plans together, days to months ahead | Inside your rules: you choose what it simply does and what waits for your yes |
What Gemini does well
- Maker
- Cost
- Free; AI Plus $4.99, AI Pro $19.99, AI Ultra from $99.99 a month
- Where
- Web, iPhone, Android, Mac
- App Store
- 4.7 from 2.4M ratings
Gemini’s great advantage is where it lives. It’s built into the Google apps you may already use every day, so it can work with what’s already there: your inbox, your calendar, your files, your photos and your maps. It’s free to start, and you can type, add a photo or talk to it with Gemini Live. In the UK, Google’s plans cost £4.49, £18.99 and from £79.99 a month.
Built into GoogleWith Connected Apps, Gemini can summarise your Gmail, create events in Google Calendar, play music from YouTube Music or Spotify, control your Google Home devices and, on Android, make calls and send messages. With your permission, it can take actions in those apps.
Personal IntelligenceTurn on Personal Intelligence and Gemini can draw on what you connect, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Contacts, Search, Maps and YouTube, to answer questions about your own life and make tailored suggestions. Google says it uses that data to build insights about you, your relationships and the people in your world. It’s for personal accounts, for people aged 18 and over, and isn’t available in the UK, the EEA, Switzerland or Nigeria.
MemoryGemini can use memory of your past chats, and you can check by asking “Did you use any info from past chats?” In the US, on a Google AI plan, it can also remember specific facts you tell it, such as “Remember that I am vegetarian”, and you can correct it in the chat. To make it forget something, you delete the chats that mention it.
Gems, now becoming skillsGems are your own custom versions of Gemini, set up with instructions and files, such as a helper for weekly meal ideas. From November 2026, Gems on personal accounts turn into skills: saved instructions that Gemini can apply by itself when they’re relevant.
Schedules, Daily Brief and tasksAsk Gemini to do something on a schedule and it prepares it in the background, with up to 10 scheduled actions at a time. In the US, a Daily Brief pulls together what needs you from Gmail, Calendar and your chats, with suggested next steps for your goals, and gets more personal as you mark items done and give feedback. On AI Pro and Ultra, tasks go further: decluttering your inbox, watching flight and hotel prices, or researching and making documents, once or on a schedule.
Health and shoppingThe Google Health Coach, built with Gemini, coaches fitness, nutrition, sleep and mindfulness in the Google Health app. It needs a Fitbit or Pixel Watch, and comes with Google Health Premium ($9.99 a month) or with AI Pro and Ultra. Google says its guidance is information, not medical advice. Gemini can also help you shop in 21 countries. We cover both in our guides to AI sleep coaches and AI personal shoppers.
Worth knowingWhere you live matters. In the UK, the EEA and Switzerland, Personal Intelligence and tasks aren’t available, Daily Brief is US-only and in English, and shopping in Gemini isn’t offered in the UK. Google’s privacy hub says a subset of chats is reviewed by people, activity is kept for 18 months by default, and your chats aren’t used to show you ads. With Keep Activity on, your Gemini activity, including what it draws from connected apps, can help train Google’s AI models, though Google says it doesn’t train them directly on your Gmail inbox or Photos library. Memory, schedules and most connected apps need Keep Activity on.
The same request, handled by each
Take one everyday job: “What should I wear this week?” Your week has a pitch on Tuesday at 10:00, a client dinner on Thursday at 19:30 and showers forecast for Thursday evening.
In Gemini
Google’s own help pages suggest this kind of schedule: a daily weather forecast paired with outfit ideas from a list of your wardrobe items. Set it up once, and each morning’s ideas are ready at the time you choose. Where Personal Intelligence is available, Gemini can also look at your Calendar when you ask, and see the pitch and the dinner.
The wardrobe list is yours to write and keep up to date, and the joining up stays with you too: that the client saw your grey suit at the last dinner, that the navy blazer has a mark on the cuff, that your favourite white shirt is fraying, and that you’d rather wear leather than suede in the rain. Gemini can help with each of those, if you tell it.
In Retenna
Retenna’s stylist starts from your wardrobe, added from photos, receipts and order emails, product links and more, and from what it has learned about how you dress. By Sunday evening, the week is done:
Sunday 20:10 · for the week ahead
Five outfits planned, one for each day: the navy blazer for the pitch, and a white shirt under a charcoal knit, with leather loafers, for dinner.
Why: around your plans, the forecast and who you’ll see. The client saw your grey suit last time.
Done for you
Monday 08:10 · ready Tuesday 07:30
The navy blazer dropped at your usual dry cleaner’s on your way to work.
Why: the mark on the cuff, before the pitch.
Done for you
Monday · arriving Wednesday
A new white shirt, the one you always buy, in your size, £35.
Why: your favourite’s collar is fraying, and Thursday’s look needs one.
Waits for your yes · new spending
Thursday 07:00 · on the day
The forecast checked again: showers still due at 18:00, as you walk over, so the leather loafers stay.
Why: you swapped suede for leather the last time it rained.
Done for you
Five mornings with nothing to decide, and a look the client hasn’t seen. And your stylist shares one picture of your week with every other expert, so a change in one reshapes the rest. There’s more in our guide to AI stylist apps.
Where Retenna goes further
Gemini knows a great deal about what’s in your Google account. Retenna is built to know the parts of your life that don’t live there, and to plan them together.
| What it does | Retenna | Gemini |
|---|---|---|
| Works with your Google Calendar and Gmail | Yes | Yes |
| Remembers you between conversations | Yes | Yes |
| Works beyond Google’s own apps | Yes | Partly |
| Learns from what you do and change, not just what you say | Yes | Partly |
| A full space for your wardrobe and style | Yes | Partly |
| Training and sleep, planned around your week | Yes | Partly |
| Gets things ready ahead, without being asked | Yes | Partly |
| Your own rules for what it does without asking | Yes | Partly |
| Keeps your information out of training public AI models | Yes | Partly |
| Every expert plans together, so one change reshapes the rest | Yes | Not mentioned |
| A reason and an Undo for everything it does | Yes | Not mentioned |
- Yes
- Google documents it.
- Partly
- A lighter version: some other apps, such as Spotify, and WhatsApp on Android, learning from your chats and Daily Brief feedback, outfit ideas from a list you keep, coaching in a separate app with a Fitbit or Pixel Watch, schedules you set up, confirmation for some tasks, or no training only once Keep Activity is off.
- Dash
- Not mentioned in Google’s own pages. That doesn’t prove it can’t.
The top rows are where Gemini is strong, and Retenna is built to meet it there: it connects to your calendars (Google, Outlook and more), your email and your contacts, and to your health and activity through Apple Health, Health Connect, Samsung Health and more. The lower rows are the difference. If you’re weighing up single-subject apps instead, see the best all-in-one lifestyle apps.
How Retenna learns you, and plans with it
Gemini learns from your chats and what you connect. Retenna learns from what you do, what you choose and what you tell it, and turns it into one living model of you that every expert shares. Here’s what that looks like in your kitchen:
- On late nights, you order in unless dinner is ready. So on a week when leg day moves to Tuesday after work, Monday’s tray bake makes two dinners.
- Alex is home on Monday and Thursday, and doesn’t eat meat. So the tray bake is chicken for you and halloumi for Alex.
- You’re away from Friday to Sunday. So the shop is smaller, the veg box is skipped, and the spinach becomes Thursday’s soup before it goes off.
Because every expert shares that model and one picture of your week, a change in one reshapes the rest ahead of time: move leg day, and dinner is ready that night; book brows, and the new skincare waits. And the more it learns, the less it asks:
- Day one It asks. Who’s home for dinner this week, and what does everyone eat? You answer, and it remembers.
- Within weeks It suggests. “A double tray bake on Monday, so dinner’s ready after Tuesday’s leg day?” One tap, and the week is planned.
- In time It decides the way you would, further ahead: dinners for two all week, a £31 shop arriving on Monday at 18:00, when you’re in, and £42 under your usual week.
You can see, change or forget anything it has learned, and it stops planning around what you remove. More in our guides to AI meal planners and AI nutritionists.
How you stay in charge
Your rules, in your own wordsYou choose what Retenna simply does and tells you about after, and what waits for your yes. Change a rule, and your week changes with it. Anything that involves another person always asks first:
Tuesday · 5 days ahead
Mum’s card posts tomorrow to land in time, with a call planned for your drive home. A good-luck text for Priya, and a cat-safe plant for Sam?
Why: post takes 2 days and Mum’s birthday is on Sunday, Priya’s driving test is on Thursday, and Sam has just moved flat with a cat.
Waits for your yes · involves 3 people
A reason and an Undo, every timeEvery plan shows why it was made, and comes with an Undo. Keep undoing the same kind of plan, and it says so and suggests a rule.
And in GeminiSome tasks ask for your confirmation, and Google advises against scheduling anything you find sensitive, because a task that runs while you’re offline may be hard to stop. That’s sensible for a general assistant. Retenna is built to act on its own, so your rules come first.
Can I use both?
Yes, and they fit together well. Retenna answers everyday questions too, and because it already knows you, its answers fit your life: what to wear to Thursday’s dinner, what to cook with what’s in the fridge, whether to train after a short night. Its AI is built deeper for everyday life rather than for everything, so Gemini stays useful beyond it:
- Gemini for search, Google and broader questions. Anything you’d search for outside everyday life, finding that email, a summary of a long thread, directions in Maps.
- Retenna for your life, questions included. What to wear, train and eat this week, rest before a busy patch, every occasion and trip readied in time, shopping that buys what you need and not what you have, and the people you love remembered.
Retenna is built to connect to your Google Calendar and your email, and you choose how much it sees, from just the emails you pick to your whole inbox. So the two can work from the same diary.
How to choose
If you want a capable assistant across your Google account, Gemini is an easy choice, and much of it is free. If you want your outfits, training, meals, rest, plans and shopping looked after, by experts who know you and plan together, that’s Retenna.
For help across your Google apps
- Gemini, freeQuick answers, Gemini Live, Gems and help across Gmail, Calendar and Maps
- Google AI PlusA cheaper step up, with twice the free usage and a Daily Brief in the US$4.99 a month in the US, £4.49 in the UK.
- Google AI ProMore use, tasks that run on their own, Gemini in Gmail and Docs, and the Google Health Coach$19.99 a month in the US, £18.99 in the UK. Tasks aren’t available in the UK or the EEA.
- Another AIChatGPT, if you’d rather an assistant outside Google, or one of the othersSee Retenna vs ChatGPT and the best ChatGPT alternatives.
For running your everyday life
Ours · coming to iPhone, Android and the web
Retenna
Every lifestyle expert, one mind that knows you, with a full space for each part of your life. It works from the Google Calendar and email you already use, and goes further: it learns how you live, has every expert plan together, and gets things ready ahead, inside your rules.
- Style
- Beauty and grooming
- Training
- Food
- Rest
- Days, occasions and trips
- Shopping
- The people you love
Whichever you pick, check three things first
- What it can see, and whether you can share only the parts you want to.
- Whether what you share trains its models, and what you lose if you say no.
- What it does without asking, and how easily you can undo it.
How Retenna works
About Retenna · that’s us
Every lifestyle expert, one mind that knows you.
Retenna isn’t an assistant added to your apps. It’s a complete lifestyle app, with the depth of a dedicated style app, training app, meal planner and planner in one, and an expert for each part of your life who knows your part of it: what’s in your wardrobe and who has seen it, how your skin reacts, how you recover, what’s in your kitchen and what the people you love care about. It works from the calendars and email you already use, Google’s included: by Sunday evening your week is dressed, and Monday’s tray bake means dinner is ready after Tuesday’s leg day.
What makes Retenna different
- Every expert, in one app. A stylist, a beauty and grooming expert, a personal trainer, a nutritionist, a wellbeing coach, a planner for your days, occasions and trips, and a personal shopper, each with a full space of its own. They remember what matters to the people you love, and an assistant runs through all of them.
- One living model of you. It learns from what you do, what you choose and what you tell it. On day one it asks; soon it suggests; in time it decides the way you would. You can see, change or forget any of it.
- Every expert plans together. They share one picture of your week, so a change in one reshapes the rest: leg day moves, so dinner is ready that night; brows move, so any redness settles before the party.
- Everything inside your rules. You choose what it simply does and what waits for your yes. Every plan comes with the reason and an Undo, and anything that involves another person always asks first.
For everyday life, questions included, it’s built to be all you need, and it works happily alongside Gemini for everything else. Retenna is coming to iPhone, Android and the web, and early access is open now.
Get early accessQuestions
Is Retenna better than Gemini?
They’re built for different jobs. Gemini is Google’s AI assistant, available now and free to start, and at its best across your Google apps. Retenna is a complete lifestyle app, with an expert and a full space for each part of your life, built to learn you and plan ahead inside your rules. For running your everyday life, that’s what we built Retenna to do. It isn’t out yet, and early access is open now.
Is Retenna built on Gemini?
No. Retenna runs its own AI, built for everyday life, so it goes deeper on your style, skin, training, food, rest, plans, shopping and the people you love. It runs privately on Microsoft Azure, and your information is never used to train public AI models.
Can Retenna answer general questions?
Yes, everyday ones, and it already knows you, so “what should I wear tonight?” or “what can I cook with this?” gets an answer that fits your plans, wardrobe and kitchen. For search and broader questions outside everyday life, Gemini is still useful.
Can Gemini plan my outfits and meals?
Yes, in the chat, and Google even suggests a daily schedule that pairs the forecast with outfit ideas from a list of your wardrobe. You keep that list up to date, and Google’s pages don’t mention a wardrobe, a kitchen or a training log in Gemini, or planning them together. Our guides to AI stylists and AI meal planners compare the apps built for each.
Does Gemini work in the UK?
The Gemini app does, but several of its most personal features don’t yet. Personal Intelligence and tasks aren’t available in the UK, the EEA, Switzerland or Nigeria, Daily Brief is US-only, and shopping in Gemini isn’t offered in the UK. The Google Health Coach is available in the UK with a Fitbit or Pixel Watch. Retenna is built for the UK too: it will be one of the first countries Retenna launches in.
What are Gems, and what’s happening to them?
Gems are custom versions of Gemini that you set up with instructions and files. From November 2026, Gems on personal Google accounts turn into skills, which Gemini can apply by itself when they’re relevant.
Does Gemini use my Gmail to train AI?
Google says it doesn’t train its models directly on your Gmail inbox, Drive or Photos library. But with Keep Activity on, your Gemini activity, including what it draws from connected apps, can be used to improve Google’s services, including training generative AI models, and a subset of chats is reviewed by people. You can turn Keep Activity off, but memory of past chats and schedules need it on.
Can Retenna use my Google Calendar?
Yes. Retenna is built to connect to your calendars (Google, Outlook and more), your email, your contacts and the health apps on your phone and watch, and to read each one for what it means across your whole life. You choose what to connect and how much it sees, from just the emails you pick to your whole inbox.
Is my data private with Retenna?
Your Retenna is private to you. Everything it knows is locked to your account and walled off from everyone else’s, on Microsoft Azure’s secure cloud, encrypted when stored and on the way. You can see, correct, export or delete what Retenna holds about you, including anything it has learned. If you turn learning on, it learns from what you do and tell it to personalise your own experience, and what it learns stays with your account, never used for anyone else. We never use your information to train public AI models. We never sell your information, and detailed analytics and personalised ads are optional, for adults only, and off unless you say yes.
When can I get Retenna?
Retenna is coming to iPhone, Android and the web. We haven’t set a date yet. The UK will be one of the first countries, and we’ll confirm the others nearer the time. Joining early access is free, and founding members keep founding pricing for life.
Sources
- Google, plans and prices: US plans, UK plans
- Google, what Gemini knows: Connected Apps, Personal Intelligence, personalisation with Connected Apps, memory of past chats, what Gemini remembers, privacy hub
- Google, what Gemini does: Gems, skills, scheduled actions, Daily Brief, tasks, schedules for tasks, shopping
- Google Health: Google Health Coach launch, getting started with the coach
- Gemini on the US App Store
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we’ll fix it.