Google on Monday (August 3) kicked off the 2026 edition of the Google Play Accelerator programme, selecting 20 Indian AI app developer startups across sectors including education, healthcare, gaming, agriculture, finance, e-commerce, productivity, lifestyle, and entertainment. The three-month programme offers advanced tools, mentorship, AI scaling, App Stability & Performance audit, and subscriber-retention technology, and is slated to conclude in November. Notable alumni include Toonsutra, which used Gemini, Lyria, and Veo for vernacular webcomics; Vidyakul, which achieved 85–90% accuracy in AI-generated vernacular questions; Flick TV, which reduced micro-drama production time by 40 per cent using GenAI; and BigOHealth, which used Google AI/ML APIs for clinical triaging of cancer patients. The 2026 cohort includes Chaupal (Entertainment), ChennaiGames (Gaming), Dalvoy (Education), Frontier Markets (Social Commerce), GAPE Labs (Gaming), Grape (Lifestyle), HeyDoc AI (Health), Kisanwala (Agriculture), Lingopanda (Education), LUZO (Lifestyle), Machaxi (Health), MetaShot (Gaming), MindYourLogic Studios (Gaming), MrMed (Health), Plutus Labs Inc. (Gaming), Regain (Productivity), Swipe (Finance), Zave AI (E-commerce), UrbanPro (Education), and Zet (Finance).