  We introduce gravity theories featuring spontaneously growing gauge fields
where the growth is due to the Higgs mechanism. The underlying physics is
inspired by the spontaneous scalarization phenomena in scalar-tensor theories.
The tachyonic instability that causes the growth in spontaneous scalarization
and its analog for vector fields is introduced not as an explicit potential
term, but through a scalar coupling using a Higgs field. The resulting theories
are distinct from previous examples of spontaneous tensorization in that they
respect the gauge symmetry at the level of the action. Our results are valid
for both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories, and this is the first study of
the spontaneous growth of the latter. We discuss astrophysical implications of
these theories and argue their relevance especially in the strong gravity
regime.
