With generative AI being part of our lives now, the next step is to make it capable of holding a more natural conversation. As unveiled during the company’s Made by Google event, Google’s Gemini chatbot has finally reached that stage.
Google has unveiled a new voice chat feature for its AI assistant, Gemini, called Gemini Live. Available exclusively to Gemini Advanced subscribers, this feature enables users to engage in conversational interactions with the AI, much like ChatGPT’s voice chat feature. Like ChatGPT, which introduced its kind-of-spooky voice chat feature with the launch of GPT-4o, Gemini Live boasts “seamless” human-like conversations, allowing you to interrupt, pause, and resume interactions. The feature functions even when the phone is locked or in the background. This was first teased at Google’s I/O conference, where the ability to interpret videos in real-time was also hinted at.
You can choose from 10 new voices for Gemini, with names such as Ursa and Dipper—we don’t have access to all the voices on our devices, but you can check them out by yourself whenever the feature lands on your phone. It’s rolling out in English for Android devices, with iOS support and additional languages expected in the coming weeks.
Alongside Gemini Live, Google announced additional enhancements for its AI assistant. New extensions for apps such as Keep, Tasks, Utilities, and YouTube Music are on the horizon. Moreover, Gemini is gaining context awareness of your screen, akin to Apple’s AI features announced at WWDC. This will allow you to seek information about on-screen content, even extracting details like travel destinations from videos to add to Google Maps.
If you want to check these out, they should land on your phone soon, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see Google launch them on its highest-end phones first. Also, you’ll need Gemini Advanced, which is offered as part of Google’s highest-end One subscription costing $19.99 a month.
