Gemini Live makes Google AI conversational

Google today began rolling out Gemini Live, a promised conversational version of its generative AI. The technology is similar to ChatGPT’s voice chat mode, allowing users to interact with Gemini instead of making one-off requests. The functionality is essentially the same, but users can interrupt the AI’s answer to quickly respond to a request without having to remind Gemini of the situation.

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Users can also toggle between 10 different male and female voices and can pause conversations to resume later. Perhaps more importantly, Gemini Live can continue to run in the background on Android, even when your phone or tablet is locked. When running in the foreground, it presents a full-screen interface with special effects.

There are some major limitations right now: Gemini Live is only available in English, and you also need an Android device signed in to Gemini Advanced, which is bundled with a Google One AI Premium subscription. It costs $20 per month, but of course it comes with perks like 2TB of Google Drive storage. Support for iOS and other languages ​​is planned for the “coming weeks.”

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What can you do with Gemini Live?

Google gives examples like rehearsing a job interview, learning how to relieve stress, and asking how to make invisible ink more interesting than just how to make it. Notably, though, the launch version of Gemini Live lacks multimodal input that would allow it to scan signs or tell you about objects seen by the camera, a feature Google is hoping to bring to other aspects of its AI.

Multimodal support is expected to come to Gemini Live, but Google says the rollout will be “later this year.”