GCP Release Notes: February 26, 2026

Cloud Trace

Feature

For organizations, folders, and projects, you can now configure default settings for observability buckets. Default settings let you specify the following for new observability buckets:

• A location.
• A Cloud KMS key.

This feature is in public preview. To learn more, see Set defaults for observability buckets.

Feature

You can now configure observability buckets to be in the following locations:

• us
• eu
• us-central1
• us-west1

Your trace data is stored in an observability bucket. To learn more, see Trace storage overview.

Generative AI on Vertex AI

Feature

Gemini 3.1 Flash Image

Gemini 3.1 Flash Image (gemini-3.1-flash-image) is available in public preview. This release enables high-quality image generation with improved pricing and latency. We recommend using Gemini 3.1 Flash Image when generating images.

For more information, see Gemini 3.1 Flash Image.

Security Command Center

Feature

Security Command Center lets you filter findings, issues, and compliance information to view only the resources that are registered to an App Hub application. For information, see Integration with App Hub.

Source: Google Cloud Platform