The Google Meet video calling app is getting a Gemini-powered live speech translation feature that Google says enables users to overcome the language barrier and communicate more easily.
In the demonstration shown at Google I/O on Tuesday the company showed off the feature with the AI picking up voices and quickly converting them from Spanish to English and vice versa.
Users will hear the conversation in their chosen language and, when you respond, the translation preserves the sound of your own voice. It appears Google is able to do this on the fly, just by listening to your first few words. So, it’s almost as if you were speaking in the language of the recipient.
Sundar Pichai, the Google CEO added: “You can see how well it matches the speakers tone, patterns and even their expressions. We’re even closer to having a natural, free-flowing conversation across languages.”
Users will be able to choose which language they speak and which language they want to hear, so it might be a neat language learning tool.
Google says the feature is ready to roll out for Gemini subscribers, while Workplace users will also get a go at it this year. Presumably the rest of us will be able to use the feature not too long from now.
It may give Google Meet a leg up in the competition against rivals like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The demonstration Google showed during I/O sounded quite impressive.
We’ll have more on this when Google reveals more as Google I/O progresses.
