chore(main): release 1.81.0

[release-please]

🤖 I have created a release beepboop

1.81.0

1.81.0 (2026-03-11)

⚠ BREAKING CHANGES

• [vectorsearch] Removed field DenseScannParams from SearchHint
• [vectorsearch] Removed obsolete field vertex from message .google.cloud.vectorsearch.v1.Ranker
• [vectorsearch] Removed obsolete field vertex from message .google.cloud.vectorsearch.v1.Ranker
• [auditmanager] Update existing packaging option cloud.google.com/go/auditmanager/apiv1/auditmanagerpb;auditmanagerpb for go_package

Features

• [aiplatform] A new field inference_generation_config is added to message .google.cloud.aiplatform.v1beta1.EvaluationConfig (6c3721b)
• [aiplatform] add AskContexts and AsyncRetrieveContexts APIs to VertexRagService (6b658dc)
• [aiplatform] add AskContexts and AsyncRetrieveContexts APIs to VertexRagService (6b658dc)
• [aiplatform] Add custom session id field to create session v1beta1 (6b658dc)
• [alloydb] Add a new field to support Dataplex integration configuration (6b658dc)
• [ces] update public libraries for CES v1beta (6b658dc)
• [compute] Update Compute Engine v1 API to revision 20260213 (6b658dc)
• [document-ai] Added a field for enabling image and table annotation for layout parser processor (6b658dc)
• [gdchardwaremanagement] Add OFFLINE state to Zone resources (6b658dc)
• [gkehub] A new field kubernetes_api_server_version is added to message .google.cloud.gkehub.configmanagement.v1beta.MembershipState (6b658dc)
• [maps-routing] add a new Waypoint source to accept a token that identifies a Navigation Point obtained from the SearchDestinations method of the Geocoding API (6b658dc)
• [network-management] Add API fields related to GKE Pods and Network Policies (6c3721b)
• [storagebatchoperations] add new transformation update_object_custom_context (6c3721b)
• add email and skip-kokoro flags to release bot (#12050) (12e2e94)
• jdbc: centralize connection properties from BigQueryConnection and DataSource (#4116) (d3b8bde)

Bug Fixes

• [auditmanager] Update existing packaging option cloud.google.com/go/auditmanager/apiv1/auditmanagerpb;auditmanagerpb for go_package (6c3721b)
• [vectorsearch] Removed field DenseScannParams from SearchHint (6b658dc)
• [vectorsearch] Removed obsolete field vertex from message .google.cloud.vectorsearch.v1.Ranker (6c3721b)
• [vectorsearch] Removed obsolete field vertex from message .google.cloud.vectorsearch.v1.Ranker (6c3721b)
• Configure defualt keep alive pings for BQ Storage Read API RPCs (#12037) (a808bbe)
• jdbc: various perf improvements (#4114) (0137e4b)

Documentation

• [errorreporting] update the reference link for ErrorGroupStats (6b658dc)

---

This PR was generated with Release Please. See documentation.

[blakeli0]

Discussed with @lqiu96 that the test failures in bigquerystorage is not due to code changes, they should not affect customers.

[release-please]

🤖 Created releases:

• v1.81.0

🌻

[blakeli0]

For posterity, this is the stacktrace for the failing test

19:37:49:275 [ERROR] com.google.cloud.bigquery.storage.v1.StreamWriterTest.testAppendWithMissingValueMap -- Time elapsed: 0.209 s <<< FAILURE!
org.opentest4j.AssertionFailedError: expected: <java-streamwriter DATAFLOW:job_id> but was: <java-streamwriter:3.23.0 DATAFLOW:job_id>
at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertionFailureBuilder.build(AssertionFailureBuilder.java:151)
at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertionFailureBuilder.buildAndThrow(AssertionFailureBuilder.java:132)
at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.failNotEqual(AssertEquals.java:197)
at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.assertEquals(AssertEquals.java:182)
at org.junit.jupiter.api.AssertEquals.assertEquals(AssertEquals.java:177)
at org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals(Assertions.java:1145)
at com.google.cloud.bigquery.storage.v1.StreamWriterTest.verifyAppendRequests(StreamWriterTest.java:406)
at com.google.cloud.bigquery.storage.v1.StreamWriterTest.testAppendWithMissingValueMap(StreamWriterTest.java:1789)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
at java.util.ArrayList.forEach(ArrayList.java:1259)
at java.util.ArrayList.forEach(ArrayList.java:1259)