Three features you should try

When first released, the Gemini app for Android was pretty barebones. But since then, Google has added a number of great features that make it a powerful assistant in its own right.

You can actually have a conversation with a Gemini

If you think of sending and receiving voice messages as “Google Assistant,” you can, in a sense, have a conversation with Google Assistant. talking. If you ask about the weather or movie reviews, they’ll give you information. You have to press the microphone button multiple times each time you want to send a message. That’s enough to set an alarm, but Google Assistant won’t be able to carry on a conversation. Even if you could do that, the conversation wouldn’t seem human. That may be the case when talking to a Gemini.

When you open the Gemini app on your phone, you’ll see a small glowing waveform button in the right corner of the screen. Tapping this will launch the Gemini Live interface. Just press start to activate Gemini Live. Please leave this screen now. Gemini Live will continue to run in the background.

Initially, Gemini Live was only available to paying subscribers. It is currently included in the regular free version of the app. You can talk to Gemini just like you talk to people. It’s built on the same extensive language model as regular Gemini, except that you can speak in real time without any delay, and you can interrupt the conversation (or yourself) in the middle. No need to press the microphone button over and over again. It’s just a free conversation.

I’ve been testing Gemini Live for the past few weeks, and I’ve been blown away every time. If you’ve tried ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, Gemini Live is very similar to it. There is no equivalent to this technology. It felt like the uncanny valley, which you can only understand if you experience it for yourself. Typically, a “just the facts” approach is taken when texting a Gemini. When I talked to Gemini Live, I felt like they were listening to me. Even when I backed away or interrupted, they understood.

You can set up Gemini Live by entering your voice into Google Assistant and switching to Gemini as your default assistant. Gemini Live can speak to you in 10 different voices, including one with a British accent. You can also change it later.

discuss anything

I tried to talk to them about the movie, and at every turn they asked thoughtful or interesting questions. That was my answer. And it sounded like Gemini had an opinion on this movie. Dialogue fillers such as “hmm”, “oops”, and “umm” were also added to give a more convincing impression. Gemini’s tone was also quite informal. It didn’t sound robotic at all. This can be a very engaging way to learn more about a topic, as you’ll be talking to a bot that knows everything and mimics human conversation.

plan your day

I don’t just write down my tasks, I use it to help me plan my day. We talked about what we wanted to do today. Gemini Live followed my lead and suggested a plan for the day. I edited some parts while talking to Gemini. At one point someone told me I looked overwhelmed, and I was. I followed that advice and relaxed a bit. We picked up our conversation where we left off. The whole time, it felt like I was talking to a real assistant.

Points to know

However, Gemini Live is far from perfect. One problem is that Gemini Live doesn’t have access to extensions yet (more on this later). So if you ask them to create a list of tasks, they’ll send you that list in chat. Gemini Live stops rather abruptly if you interrupt it mid-sentence. Like other large language models, Gemini can have hallucinations, so it’s worth keeping that in mind. I think this great feature is still in its early stages of development, but it will eventually evolve into a full-fledged assistant that works with Google apps.

Gemini extension

You can ask Google Assistant to connect to your app to check your calendar, control Google Home, and more. Such app integrations will be rebranded as Gemini Extensions. You can also launch Gemini with “Hey Google” and access extensions using your voice. Also works with text prompts.

New ways to use Google Apps

For example, you can ask Google Keep to generate to-do lists and notes for you. However, you can also prompt to automatically generate the list instead of starting from scratch. You can also use Gemini to create new calendar events and manage existing ones.

Ask them to play your music using YouTube Music. You can start with a simple prompt like “Play some music,” or you can specify a specific album, artist, or track name. This also applies to YouTube videos. In addition to simply playing, you can also ask complex questions about the video itself. Google Maps is tightly integrated with Gemini. View map overlays and ask Gemini questions about navigation and location without leaving the app.

Google has connected the entire Google Workspace to work with Gemini Mobile. So you can perform powerful searches across your workspace, get AI-generated summaries, and create reminders and tasks from your emails without having to open Google Docs, Drive, Sheets, or Gmail. You can.

Of course, all of these extensions can also work together. Here’s how Google explains this: You can ask Gemini to retrieve recipes from your email and add ingredients to your Keep list with one prompt. Gemini can also help you plan your next trip with hotel and flight app integrations. Connect to Google Hotels in real time and get hotels that match your specific prompts and itinerary. You can then use the Google Flights extension to search for flights based on your itinerary.

In addition to these extensions, Gemini can also work with Google Assistant to perform everyday tasks. You can ask it to set alarms, control your smart home devices, identify songs and songs, and more. Google Assistant also handles routine functions. Depending on when you’re reading this, Google may be adding more extensions. You can access the list by tapping your profile icon and selecting Extensions from the menu.

What is this?

The Gemini app has a handy camera button that lets you take a photo and ask questions about it. You can caption images, identify plants, learn more about medicines, and more. It’s amazingly good at identifying and captioning both.

You can also talk about what is currently displayed on the screen. The Gemini overlay (which you can summon anywhere on your phone by long-pressing the Home button or pressing and holding a Home gesture) lets you tell Gemini to quickly identify what’s on your screen. Masu. In reality, it just takes a screenshot of the current screen and provides detailed information about it. After using it a few times I found it to be quite accurate. To access this feature, open the overlay and tap the Add this screen button. Upload your screenshots to Gemini so you can follow up with voice or text.

Gemini isn’t ready to completely replace Google Assistant just yet, but it’s already much more powerful. As Google focuses on developing generative AI for Android, I expect it to become even more powerful in the coming years.